Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue

by Victoria Thompson

  “Gino, this is Detective Sergeant Kilroy. Detective, Mr. Donatelli.”

  “You said he was a detective,” Kilroy said. “He don’t look old enough to shave.”

  “He fought in Cuba with Governor Roosevelt.”

  “He ain’t the governor yet,” Kilroy said with a disgruntled frown.

  Mr. Decker just smiled. They all knew Roosevelt had been elected and would be sworn in the first of the year, which was just a few weeks away. “Would you mind telling Mr. Donatelli what you told me?”

  Kilroy looked Gino over again. “Maybe you’d like to see for yourself where it happened.”

  He didn’t make it sound like an invitation, but Gino said, “Yes, I would, thanks.”

  “It’s pretty bloody,” he said with a mean grin.

  “So was Cuba, Detective Sergeant.”

  Kilroy snorted and started into the next room. Gino followed, although he noticed Mr. Decker did not. Mr. Decker had not gone to Cuba. The first room was a parlor with a small dining room table squeezed into one corner. What stopped Gino, however, was the condition of the room.

  The place was sparsely furnished, but the desk on one wall and a cabinet on another had been turned out, all the drawers dumped and the contents scattered on the floor. The sofa cushions had been tossed on the floor and cut open. It looked, in fact, exactly like Pollock’s office had looked.

  “Was it like this when you got here?”

  “You think this is how cops search a place?” Kilroy asked with disdain.

  Gino knew it wasn’t, but Kilroy seemed like somebody who might not follow the rules too closely. Kilroy had already moved on, and Gino hurried to catch up. The next room was the bedroom, and Gino saw at once this was where Truett had been killed.

  The body was still there, sprawled facedown on the rug and clad only in a nightshirt, his pudgy bare legs splayed. The head was a bloody mess and blood had soaked into the rug around it. Blood had also splashed onto the ceiling and wall, which meant Truett had been struck several times.

  “What did the killer hit him with?” Gino asked, glancing around.

  “A lamp.” Kilroy jutted his chin in the direction of the far corner where a lamp base lay. It appeared to be made of brass or some other metal and was clotted with blood.

  Gino glanced around the room again. It contained a double bed, a nightstand, a chest of drawers, and a wardrobe. No need for a washstand, because the apartment included a real bathroom, which he could see through an open doorway. Yes, this was a very nice place. All the drawers in here had been dumped out as well, and the contents of the wardrobe lay on the floor. The bedclothes had been stripped off and the mattress was askew, which probably meant the killer had checked underneath it. Whoever had done the search was thorough.

  One thing that hadn’t been disturbed was the lamp on the bedside table. Gino pointed at the murder weapon. “Where did it come from?”

  “What do you mean? It came from here.”

  “I mean, was it in this room?” Gino looked around again. “Where’s the shade?”

  Kilroy looked around, too. Neither of them saw it.

  Gino went back into the parlor, and he found it there, on the floor in front of the sofa. It was dented, as if it had been torn off in haste and tossed aside. The table beside the sofa was the logical place for it, and no lamp sat there. Then he did what Frank Malloy had taught him. He pictured what had most likely happened.

  “The killer got the lamp from in here, ripped off the shade, and went in there to kill Truett with it, or at least to hit Truett with it.”

  “So?” Kilroy said.

  Gino realized he was being tested, but he didn’t mind, because he knew he was right. “So that means he went into the bedroom with the intention of hitting Truett. This was probably his main purpose in coming here.”

  “How can you know that?” Kilroy asked. “This is obviously a robbery. See?” He snatched something off the table where the lamp should have been and tossed it to Gino, who caught it clumsily against his chest. It was a wallet. Gino instinctively opened it to check its contents.

  “You’re wasting your time,” Kilroy said with a grin. “It was empty when we got here.”

  “Are you sure?” Gino asked, knowing full well that the first officer on the scene had the privilege of taking whatever ready cash remained on the victim, if any.

  “I’m sure. The first officer was whining about it when I got here. So it looks like Truett woke up during the robbery and the burglar defended himself.”

  “First of all, why would somebody break into the hotel and choose Truett’s room in particular? This doesn’t look like a place where somebody rich lives.”

  This was true. The furniture, while new, was cheap.

  “And how much do you think Truett had in his wallet? Enough to make it worth all this trouble? Also,” Gino continued, “why rob the place while Truett was here?”

  Kilroy wasn’t convinced. “But why go to all the trouble of tearing the place apart?”

  “I think he was looking for something besides what was in his wallet.” Something he didn’t find, Gino would bet, judging from the way every last corner of the place had been ransacked. “After he killed Truett, though. This searching took some time and it wasn’t quiet. Truett would’ve woken up, and a real burglar would’ve just run out.”

  Gino saw that Mr. Decker had stepped into the parlor to listen to Gino’s theories. When Gino glanced back at Kilroy, the man was staring at him with dawning recognition.

  “You’re that dago cop that was in the newspapers this morning.”

  Gino simply stared back at him.

  Kilroy was still thinking. “Wait, that was the Pollock murder you was involved with. His wife killed him, and you was at her place last night.” Kilroy frowned as he considered this information. “What does this Truett have to do with that?”

  “Mr. Truett was Pollock’s partner,” Mr. Decker explained.

  Even Kilroy could understand that. “And you think Truett’s murder and Pollock’s are connected?”

  Mr. Decker nodded to Gino, silently telling him to answer.

  “They were business partners. Both of them were killed by blows to the head. Someone broke into Pollock’s house a couple days after he died, and his office looked just like this afterward.”

  “What kind of business were they in?” Kilroy asked, still skeptical.

  “Cheating people,” Mr. Decker said. “They were getting people to invest in a bogus railroad project in Panama.”

  “Where’s Panama?”

  “Central America,” Mr. Decker said. “At any rate, it seems likely that their deaths are connected.”

  “I thought Pollock’s wife killed him,” Kilroy said.

  “It’s possible, I guess,” Mr. Decker said. “But she was in jail when her house was broken into, and I’m afraid I just don’t see her sneaking into this building, breaking into Truett’s apartment, overpowering him, and bashing his head in, and then searching this entire place and sneaking out again, all in the middle of the night. Can you?”

  “It’s possible, I guess,” Kilroy mocked, tired of their theories. “Donatelli, is it? What are you doing here if your precinct is in Harlem?”

  This was the question Gino had been dreading, because he no longer had a precinct anywhere. “I’m not with the police department anymore.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since this morning.”

  “He’s working for me in a private capacity,” Mr. Decker said. “On behalf of Mrs. Pollock.”

  “I could see that from the newspapers,” Kilroy said with a leer. “She’s quite a looker, that Mrs. Pollock. Which one of you is screwing her?”

  Gino should have been outraged to hear a lady’s name besmirched like that, which was probably what Kilroy was hoping for, but he couldn’t seem to
summon much anger.

  For his part, Mr. Decker could only manage a disgruntled scowl. “Really, Kilroy, is that any way to talk about a lady you’ve never even met?”

  Kilroy just frowned his disappointment that he’d failed to get a rise out of them.

  Gino decided they should change the subject. “By the way, how did the killer get into the apartment?” He walked over to the entry hall to examine the entry door, which still stood open. The uniformed officer glowered at him, having overheard the entire conversation with Kilroy. Gino ignored him and concentrated on the door. “I don’t see any pry marks. Do you think he picked the lock?”

  Kilroy cleared his throat. “Uh, no. The other tenants tell us they don’t usually lock their doors because nobody can get into the building unless they live here.”

  Gino stared at him in amazement. “Really? Do you think one of the other tenants killed Truett?”

  “Considering who else lives here and what you told me about Pollock, then no, I don’t.”

  “Then how would somebody who didn’t live here get in?” Gino remembered his theory about bribing the elevator operator, but that didn’t seem like something a killer or even an ordinary burglar would do.

  “Probably through the restaurant kitchen downstairs, then up the back steps.”

  “And nobody would see them?”

  “Not if they came in after the restaurant was closed; and in the middle of the night, most of the staff is gone. They told me they don’t lock the alley door because the staff goes out there to smoke.”

  “Who would know that?” Gino asked.

  “Probably anybody who’s ever been in that alley,” Kilroy said.

  So, half the population of New York. “Mind if I take another look around before I leave?”

  Kilroy shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  “Thank you for your help, Detective Kilroy,” Mr. Decker said. “Tell me, who is your supervisor? I’d like to commend you to him.”

  While Decker kept Kilroy occupied, Gino dug through the piles of papers that had been dumped out of Truett’s desk. He found nothing of interest, but under one of the sofa cushions, he found a package that had been ripped open. The brown wrapping paper was still mostly in place and the string that had tied it had only been pushed half off to reveal the contents—a stack of official-looking documents printed on heavy vellum. A quick scan showed them to be contracts for the investors in the Panamanian Railroad project, the ones they’d never found at Pollock’s house.

  Gino knew better than to ask if he could take the contracts. He left them where they were and finished his cursory search of the rest of the room. Then he returned to where Mr. Decker and Kilroy stood watching him. “Thank you, Detective Sergeant Kilroy.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me who the killer is? Isn’t that what Sherlock Holmes always does? He looks at all the evidence and sees what all the other idiots missed.”

  Gino smiled at the jibe. “I’m not Sherlock Holmes, but if we find out who killed Pollock, we’ll certainly let you know.”

  Kilroy didn’t look particularly happy with this promise. Or grateful either. Mr. Decker thanked him again for his help and then quickly ushered Gino out of the apartment.

  They didn’t exchange a word until they were outside and safely ensconced in a cab.

  “You did a very nice job in there, Gino,” Mr. Decker said. “I think Kilroy was impressed.”

  “Do you?” Gino wasn’t so sure.

  “Yes, indeed. You told him some things he hadn’t noticed before. A man like that would never admit such a thing, but I could see it. I’m sure you did, too.”

  He had, of course, but he didn’t want Mr. Decker to think he was a bragger. “What I told him was true. It looked like somebody had gone there to kill Truett and to find something important.”

  “Do you think they found it?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Mr. Decker seemed impressed by his certainty. “And why not?”

  “Because the entire place had been ransacked. Think about it. If you’re looking for something, and you find it, do you keep looking?”

  “No, of course not. I see what you mean. If he’d found what he was looking for, he would have stopped searching at that point.”

  “So part of the place would be a mess and part would be untouched.”

  “You don’t think it was a simple burglary then, do you?”

  “No self-respecting burglar would touch Truett’s place . . . unless he knew Truett had broken into Pollock’s house and taken the money.”

  “And who would know that?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t think Pollock and Truett had any other partners who might’ve known.”

  “What about the investors?”

  “How would they know the money was still in Pollock’s safe? Wouldn’t they think it was invested?”

  Mr. Decker sighed. “I don’t know, but I had a disturbing conversation with one of them this morning.”

  * * *

  Elizabeth had held lunch until Gino and Felix came back, even though she and Maeve were famished. She was pleased to see them return only a little over an hour after Gino had left, and insisted that they discuss the latest events while they ate.

  “I don’t want anyone to miss any more meals because of this situation,” she told them as they filed into the dining room.

  Gino and Maeve looked askance at the first course of baked oysters, but Elizabeth very ostentatiously began to eat hers, demonstrating the technique for them so they quickly figured out which utensils to use.

  “So, Felix, dear, can you tell us what happened to poor Mr. Truett?” she asked.

  “Not while we’re eating, my dear, but suffice it to say he was killed the same way Pollock was, and his apartment was thoroughly searched, although we have no idea for what.”

  “How did the killer get in?” Maeve asked.

  Felix explained about the hotel where Truett lived and how it was always staffed by a desk clerk and an elevator operator but that the kitchen door was left unlocked and unwatched for the most part overnight.

  “And people just leave their doors unlocked?” Elizabeth said, horrified.

  “Apparently. They were under the impression no one could get in.”

  “Well, at least Truett didn’t really have the money,” Maeve said.

  “And now it looks like he might not even have been the one who broke into Pollock’s house in the first place,” Mr. Decker said. “Say, Gino, I forgot to ask if you found anything interesting among Truett’s papers.”

  Gino looked up from prying an oyster loose. “The only interesting thing I found was a package that had been ripped open. It looked like it was contracts or something to do with the railroad. All very official and important-looking.”

  “A package, you say?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Yes, it had been wrapped with brown paper and tied with string, like someone had sent it to him, except it didn’t look like it had been mailed or anything.”

  “That’s odd,” Felix said. “When he was here yesterday, he said he needed to get into Pollock’s house to get the contracts.”

  “But you thought he was lying about that,” Elizabeth reminded him.

  “Yes, and now it looks like I was right. He must have had them all along.”

  “Or maybe he did break into Mr. Pollock’s house and took them then,” she said.

  “He couldn’t have, because they weren’t there,” Maeve said. “Remember, I searched the office the day before the break-in, and I didn’t see anything like that.”

  “And he wouldn’t have wrapped it up like that if he was stealing it,” Gino said. “Now that I think of it, the elevator operator told me the only visitor Truett got was a colored boy who delivered things to him. I thought he must have meant Eddie.”

  “So may
be Eddie delivered the package with the contracts,” Maeve said, “but that would’ve been before Pollock died, so I can’t see how it would matter.”

  “Neither can I,” Gino said. “Except that I asked Pollock’s servants if they knew where Truett lived, and Eddie never said a word.”

  “I’m sure he was just frightened, poor boy,” Elizabeth said, remembering the young man and how upset he had been that first day. “I understand the police can be quite intimidating to the servant class.”

  “Not as intimidating as they’d like to be,” Gino said, remembering how often people had refused to help him in investigations.

  Then the maid came in and cleared away the oysters. Next she served chicken croquettes and baked potatoes with some lovely peas. The cook had done well.

  When they were alone again, Maeve said, “Do we still think Truett killed Pollock?”

  “I don’t,” Gino said. “They were killed in almost exactly the same way, so it was probably the same person who killed both men.”

  “Was Mr. Truett beaten with an Egyptian statue?” Elizabeth asked.

  “No, a lamp,” Gino said.

  “Which is hardly a topic for polite conversation with ladies, particularly at the table,” Felix reminded them.

  “So if Truett didn’t kill Pollock, who killed both of them?” Maeve said.

  “We think it’s someone who was trying to get the money back,” Gino said.

  “Who is this ‘we’?” Elizabeth asked, looking at Felix, who smiled smugly back.

  “Gino and I. I had an interesting conversation with that Zimmerman fellow this morning. He already knew that Pollock was dead.”

  “That’s not surprising. It’s been in the newspapers. It’s all over them now, in fact,” Elizabeth said.

  “He knew it before that, though. He says someone told him, but he won’t say who it was.”

  “Mr. Decker and I think this person must be the killer, if he even exists,” Gino said, “and if Zimmerman made him up, then Zimmerman himself is the killer.”

  “But why would he want to kill these men?” Maeve asked.

  “Oh, because he found out the Panama scheme was a swindle,” Felix said. “I forgot to mention that part. Apparently, poor Norwalk is the one who discovered the fraud. He’d been introducing people to Pollock and recommending the project.”