See You at the Morgue

by Lawrence G. Blochman

  “Yes, but I still don’t get the angle you’re working on. Can you boil it down to half-syllable words a cop can understand?”

  “Sure,” said Dr. Rosenkohl. “It’s simple enough. Doctor Wiener in the serology lab has figured out that most people have the same group-specific in their bodily secretions as they have in their blood. In other words, by working agglutination tests on tears, saliva, or sweat, he can tell what type blood a person has.”

  “And where does that get us?” Kilkenny asked.

  “Right into the district attorney’s office, I should think,” Barney volunteered.

  Dr. Rosenkohl looked up from his task. “You know about this technique, Weaver?” he asked.

  “I’ve read about it in a scientific journal,” Barney said.

  “Then you explain it to Kenny. I’ll correct you if you’re wrong.”

  “Well, I guess we can assume that the blood on the handkerchief is the blood of the dead man, since it was found near the body,” Barney said. “I imagine you’d check that by sending a flask of his blood upstairs to be typed after the autopsy. Suppose it’s type A. Then the blood on the handkerchief should test for A, too. Suppose, though, that the extract they make from the blood on the handkerchief gives a positive reaction for B cells, as well as A cells. To check on the source of the B properties, the lab would make an extract of the unstained portion of the handkerchief. That goes through a series of controls, which would probably show that the B properties are from the unstained portion—that they are in all probability due to perspiration from the hands of the person who handled the handkerchief. From this we can predict the type of blood this person will have, and while it doesn’t always put the finger on the culprit, it does exclude some innocent parties.”

  The doctor carefully placed the stomach in a small, white-enameled pail to be taken upstairs to the toxicologists. The brain, too, would have to go through the routine of the medical examiner’s office. Statistics would show how many homicide victims during the year were under the influence of alcohol when they died.

  “How about lunch today?” inquired Detective Kilkenny. “If you’re not tied up, maybe we could talk some more about this while we eat.”

  “I think I can make it,” said Dr. Rosenkohl. “I’ve got one more autopsy, but I ought to finish by noon, unless it’s an especially tough one. We must go to that Hungarian place we used to go, on Second Avenue. I haven’t had any palatschinken in months. Come with us, Weaver?”

  “He can’t,” said Kilkenny before Barney could reply. “He’s got a good-looking redheaded girl friend who’ll be waking up just about lunchtime, and I want him to look in and make sure she don’t get restless and try to sneak out of the hospital.”

  “Maybe some other time,” said Dr. Rosenkohl. “Hello, Susie. That for me?”

  Barney turned to see who Susie might be. He saw a buxom blond attendant, a rubber apron spread across the expansive front of her white uniform, wheeling another cadaver off the elevator that obviously came from the mortuary.

  “Hi, Doc,” said Susie, chewing gum vigorously. “Yes, this is yours, but you’ll have to wait for the boys from the eighteenth precinct. It’s another homicide.”

  “Let’s see the papers,” said Dr. Rosenkohl. He leaned over the shoulder of the blond Susie as she brought out a printed form. A puzzled frown creased his forehead. He summoned Detective Kilkenny with a wag of his rubber thumb.

  “What did you just say the real name of this Pierre Laurence was?” he asked.

  “Pilozor,” said Kilkenny. “Jan Pilozor.”

  “That’s what I thought you said. And you said he had a brother in this country?”

  “That’s what the French Sûreté claims.”

  Dr. Rosenkohl made a peculiar noise in the back of his throat. He passed the paper to the detective. He said, “What do you make of this, Kenny?”

  Looking over Detective Kilkenny’s shoulder, Barney read at the top of the form: Name of Deceased—Boris Pilozor.

  XX

  BARNEY WAS STARTLED. So, evidently, was Detective Kilkenny who couldn’t have made a funnier face if he had bitten into a green persimmon. Both men stared in amazement at Dr. Rosenkohl, then looked at the cadaver that had just been wheeled into the laboratory.

  The late Mr. Boris Pilozor was a small, middle-aged man who looked particularly shriveled and pitiful in death. He had a close-cropped beard, streaked with gray, and the sparse hair that stood out from his head with grim immobility was also gray. His face was purple beneath his beard.

  “Strangulation, Rosie?” the detective asked.

  “Probably,” said Dr. Rosenkohl. “The cyanosis indicates some sort of asphyxiation. I’ll tell you for sure in an hour.”

  “Hasn’t been dead long, has he?”

  “No, he’s still pretty fresh. Ten or twelve hours, I’d say, offhand.” The doctor prodded the knee joints. “Probably killed sometime between ten last night and two this morning.”

  The detective turned to the woman attendant. “When did he come in, Susie?”

  “This morning,” Susie said. “He’s really Doctor Fuller’s case, but Doctor Fuller had to go to Washington Heights on a suicide, so now he’s Doctor Rosenkohl’s case.”

  “I got a strong hunch he’s my case,” said Detective Kilkenny. “Who’s here from the eighteenth precinct?”

  “I dunno. They’re downstairs talking to the man who identified the body. They—”

  “I’ll be right back,” said Kilkenny. “Don’t go before I come, Rosie. Come on, Weaver.”

  Barney was glad to be rid of the odor of death which hung heavy in the pathology laboratory. He followed Kilkenny to the office of the police identification bureau in the same building. The man who had identified the body was gone, but the two homicide detectives who had been going through the routine with the medical examiner’s office, furnished information which convinced Barney that Brother Boris Pilozor was very much Detective Kilkenny’s case.

  The eighteenth precinct men said that the body of the bearded Boris had been discovered a little before seven o’clock that morning lying in an alleyway and had to wait until the shops and offices began to open up before they could question the people in the neighborhood. By nine o’clock they discovered people to whom the dead man’s description was familiar. It was probably Boris Pilozor, shipping clerk for the Henry Frye Co., furriers. (“Frye’s Furs Are Fine Furs.”) The spot where the body was found was only a few doors down the alley from the rear entrance of the Frye Company.

  At nine-thirty Henry Frye himself came to the morgue and made the identification. The man was, indeed, Boris Pilozor, who, as far as he knew, had no relatives in New York. Pilozor had been shipping clerk for the Frye Company for nearly twenty years. He lived quietly somewhere in Brooklyn, and, as far as Mr. Frye knew, had no enemies. He could not imagine why anyone would want to kill such a quiet, unprepossessing little man as Pilozor. It was probably a chance marauder, who killed him to rob him.

  “Chance marauder!” Kilkenny sniffed. “They say upstairs that Pilozor must have been killed around midnight. What was a shipping clerk doing around the shop at midnight?”

  “That’s exactly what we asked Frye,” said one of the other detectives. “Frye said that Pilozor had been working late quite often lately.”

  “A shipping clerk working till midnight? What the hell kind of a union does he belong to, anyhow?”

  “That’s what we asked Frye. Seems Pilozor didn’t belong to any union. Hated unions, in fact. Great individualist. Frye thinks maybe that’s why he was killed. You know what kind of unions they been bothered with in the fur business.”

  “So Frye thinks Pilozor was killed resisting organization, does he?”

  “He says that union racketeering was about the only motive he could think of—that, or robbery.”

  “Did he say how Pilozor happened to be working so late?”

  “Yes, he said Pilozor had been worried lately. He’d been going over all the in
voices for the past year, trying to trace some furs that went astray. He was afraid he’d be blamed for some small losses they’d noticed at Frye’s lately. He—”

  “Small losses!” Kilkenny blurted, calling Barney to witness. “He didn’t say anything about a hundred and fifty grand worth of platinum foxes being mislaid, did he?”

  “A hundred and fifty—No, he never mentioned a word about it.”

  “Probably slipped his mind,” Kilkenny said. “A little item like that ain’t important enough to make an impression—particularly when it ain’t even important enough to go to the police about.”

  “What the hell is this, Kenny? What—”

  “Look,” said Kilkenny. “This guy Pilozor is my case, after all. His brother Jan is already upstairs, getting dismantled by Doc Rosenkohl. So stand by, if you want, until Rosie gets into Brother Boris and tells you that crushed thyroid cartilage and bleeding in the windpipe indicate that death was caused by strangulation. But I got the background on this case, so I may as well do the follow up.”

  Kilkenny hurried upstairs to call off his lunch with Dr. Rosenkohl, then telephone his base to report developments. When he came down again, Barney was standing in the doorway, wondering if Vivian was awake yet.

  “Well, Weaver,” the detective said, “the lieutenant wants to call in the D.A.’s office right away and file a murder charge.”

  “Has he already questioned Henry Frye?” Barney asked.

  “He’s not interested in Frye,” Kilkenny replied. “He thinks this fellow Tom Norfolk did it.”

  “Norfolk? Why?”

  “Ties up perfectly, the lieutenant thinks. Tom Norfolk and the Frye girl were picked up at one o’clock this morning in front of the Frye Fur Company. The license of Norfolk’s car went out on the broadcast, and a prowl car spotted it in West Thirtieth Street. Norfolk and the girl were just getting into the car. And since Boris Pilozor was killed about fifty yards from there—”

  “I still don’t see Tom Norfolk in this thing,” Barney said.

  “The lieutenant points out he was at Mrs. Dunne’s place on Riverside Drive at about the time Laurence was murdered.”

  “I know,” Barney insisted, “but how does Norfolk fit into the stolen-furs angle? And I don’t see how you can arrest Norfolk or anybody else until you locate Tony Grove. For my money, Tony Grove is the man to look for.”

  “I’m almost ready to agree with you,” Kilkenny said. “But the lieutenant wants me to go out to the Frye house on the Upper East Side. Seems this Julia Frye took Norfolk home with her to sleep in a spare room this morning. He was pretty plastered and is still sleeping it off. You know where Frye lives?

  “I’ve been there, yes,” Barney said.

  “Better come along and sit in on the Q. and A.,” said Kilkenny. “It’ll be like old home week for you, and you might pick up some inflections that we’d miss.”

  “Well—” Barney hesitated.

  “Sure, sure, I know,” Kilkenny said. “But she won’t be awake yet. You’ll have plenty of time to get to the hospital afterward. Besides, the lieutenant says he’s going to have Henry Frye up there, too. It might be the payoff.”

  “All right, I’ll go,” Barney said.

  XXI

  BARNEY WAS NOT QUITE SURE whether he was actually accepted as an accomplice of the law or whether Kilkenny was merely using soft soap to keep him unsuspectingly within reach. However, he accompanied the detective without protest and they arrived at the Frye chateau before the lieutenant did. Kilkenny passed the time of day with the plain-clothes man whose apparent assignment consisted in lolling against one of the marble lions guarding the Frye portals. When the lieutenant came, they all went in together.

  Tom Norfolk was up and dressed, but not very. He seemed happy to turn his back on the breakfast that someone had set out in the innocent belief that he was in condition to face food. Even the glass of Worcestershire sauce with a dash of tomato juice with which he was trying to regain normalcy was passing his fuzzy tongue with evident difficulty. His eyes hung down to mid-cheek.

  “Gentlemen, good morning,” Tom said. “Although personally I see little good in it. I’m suffering, as you may guess, from a dietary lapse. I hope you don’t expect too much of me. I—Oh, hello, Barney. What are you in for?”

  “I wish I knew,” Barney said.

  “Weaver’s been consorting with suspicious and disreputable corpses,” Kilkenny said, “like a lot of other people.”

  “Welcome to the Suspected Murderers’ Club,” Tom said, raising his eye-opener.

  “Where’s Miss Frye?” the lieutenant broke in.

  “I think she’s on her way down,” said Tom Norfolk.

  The miniature elevator was floating leisurely downward with alarming whirrs and groans. Julia Frye emerged from the wrought-iron cage, pale and pugnacious, with a cluster of purple orchids trembling on her mink coat.

  “Hello, Barney,” she said. “My condolences on the company. I hope your friends won’t be long. I’m going out.”

  “I’d be glad to telephone ahead that you might be late,” Detective Kilkenny volunteered. “Where were you going?”

  “My hairdresser’s,” Julia replied impatiently.

  “Look pretty flossy for a session of finger-waving.” Kilkenny eyed the orchids.

  “Call me a liar, then!” Julia snapped.

  “I wouldn’t think of it, Miss Frye.” Kilkenny blocked the doorway.

  “Don’t let the posies throw you off, Officer,” Norfolk said. “Three orchids aren’t even par for Julia. She can’t leave home unless she’s equipped to take first prize, hothouse class, in any flower show.”

  “Call me a liar,” Julia repeated, “because I am one. I’m not going to the hairdresser’s. I’m going to Connecticut with Tom.”

  “We thought we might get married, if it was a nice day,” Norfolk said.

  “I wouldn’t do anything until after the trial,” the lieutenant said.

  “Trial?” Julia asked. Her eyes widened.

  “Not my trial, certainly,” Norfolk said. “I haven’t even been arrested.”

  “You will be before the day’s over,” said the lieutenant.

  “You interest me strangely,” said Norfolk. He drained the rest of the tomato and Worcestershire sauce. “Let’s sit down and talk it over.”

  They went into the drawing-room, which looked roughly like the lobby of the Roxy Theater, except that it was a little more ornate and the pictures and tapestries were hung closer together. The fireplace would accommodate a whole beef for a barbecue.

  “Ever hear of a man named Pilozor?” Kilkenny asked. He was talking to Norfolk, but Barney noticed that the corner of his glance was watching for a reaction from Julia Frye. He was not disappointed. Her lips moved.

  “Never heard of him,” Norfolk said. “Is he a race horse?”

  “Miss Frye knows him,” Kilkenny said.

  “Julia!” said Norfolk reproachfully. “You’ve been keeping something from me.”

  “As a matter of fact I have,” Julia said. “I thought I’d wait until you got your eyes open before I said anything. Father phoned a little while ago and told me. Somebody strangled his shipping clerk in the alley back of the office last night.”

  “And this Pilozor is the shipping clerk?”

  “Yes.”

  Norfolk grew sober suddenly. “So that’s why we have visitors this morning,” he said. “Still, it’s a funny thing—”

  “Change your mind about knowing a man named Pilozor, Mr. Norfolk?” Kilkenny suggested.

  Norfolk shook his head. “No,” he said. “I was just thinking that it was funny anybody should go to the trouble of strangling a shipping clerk. Usually people just let them starve to death.”

  “Let’s hear you tell again what you were doing outside the Frye Fur Company at one o’clock this morning,” the lieutenant said.

  “If you expect to trap us into contradicting ourselves, you’re wasting time,” Norfolk said. “We’v
e been rehearsing our story ever since you turned us loose last night.”

  “We’re letter-perfect,” Julia added.

  “Take my advice and try to be serious.” The lieutenant scowled. “I want Detective Kilkenny to hear your story the way you told it last night. Where were you early in the evening?”

  “We were up at Tom’s place having a few drinks and talking about ourselves,” Julia said.

  “How many drinks?” Kilkenny asked.

  “Too many,” Norfolk replied. “About one o’clock we got tired of talking about ourselves and decided to go some place else for a nightcap. Harlem, I think it was.”

  “Fifty-Second Street,” Julia interposed.

  “Last night you said it was the Waldorf,” said the lieutenant.

  “Well, it’s a little vague, particularly as we never got anywhere,” Norfolk said. “We were driving down Thirtieth Street when Julia thought she saw a light in the Henry Frye Company, so we stopped to investigate.”

  “You generally play night watchman for your father’s place of business, Miss Frye?” Kilkenny asked.

  “Hardly ever. You might say never.”

  “And you’re sure it was a light inside that made you stop and investigate?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “I know that’s what you said—but I’m not sure that’s what you mean. You’re sure you didn’t see someone inside—someone you recognized?”

  Julia’s lips were tight. She shook her head.

  “Sure you didn’t see your father, Miss Frye? Sure you didn’t say to Mr. Norfolk, ‘Let’s see what the dickens my father is doing in there at this time of night?’”

  Julia continued to shake her head. She said, “It wasn’t anyone. It couldn’t have been anyone, because there wasn’t even a light. We parked about a hundred feet past the door, and when we walked back, there wasn’t even a light. It must have been just the reflection from the street light across the way, but we were a little tight and thought it was inside.”

  “Neither of you went inside?”

  “Neither of us has a key,” Norfolk said.