It Had to Be You
Page 3
Sean scribbled Edith’s information, then approached the witnesses and introduced himself. “Miss Evanston, Patrolman Garrett says you were first to find the body.”
She nodded. Her bloodshot eyes were smudged with mascara, and she wore her brunette hair in a blunt-cut bob. “When we got to the bottom of the steps, the kid skinned out from over there.” She pointed in the direction of where Murphy’s corpse still reposed.
Kid? Garrett hadn’t mentioned any kid. Sean thought of the yo-yo in the bushes—a yo-yo and some coins, a stick of gum. “What kid?” he asked. “What did he look like?”
“I don’t know.” Park Avenue shrugged inside her plush fur coat. “Just some kid. Like eight or nine. Now that I think of it, what was a little kid doing out at this hour? He beat it like he’d seen a ghost.”
“Oh, he was spooked.” Yale Boy seemed eager to add his two cents. His gelled hair was slick and parted neatly in the middle, but his bowtie hung askew. “He ran right into Edith, almost knocked her down. I had a notion to go after him, but then I thought maybe something was screwy. That’s why we stopped to have a look around. We didn’t want any trouble.”
“But you got it anyway,” Sean said dryly.
Yale Boy seemed chagrined. “Yeah.” Then he perked up. “Say, you don’t think he saw who did it, do you?”
“Nah, but do me a favor and don’t talk about it to anyone. Give us a chance to find him first. Okay?”
“Oh, sure. Mum’s the word.”
Sean asked more questions but they had no more useful information to add. “I need you to sign a statement,” he said finally. “If you wait here, one of the patrolmen will take you to the precinct.”
Yale Boy’s eyes widened. “Is that necessary?” He stood and seemed disconcerted to realize Sean still towered over him. He glanced at his girl, then back at Sean and motioned for Sean to step away with him for a quick word.
When Sean accommodated, he reached inside his coat. “Say, sport, her pop thinks she’s staying with a friend. He doesn’t need to know any different.” He produced three twenty-dollar bills.
Sean looked hard at the bills, then back at Yale Boy. He let the silence drag out until the youth slipped the dough back into his coat. “Uh, sure. Never mind.”
The medical examiner had arrived. Sean scowled and left Yale Boy fidgeting on the path behind him. If possible, his already rotten mood had worsened. He had little regard for the children of wealth, the arrogant college boys with their hip flasks and the girls with their beauty salon bobs—
Sean stopped midway to where John Murphy now lay in the blue-white glare of the photographer’s floodlights, his notoriously handsome mug planted in the dirt. He turned back to watch Yale Boy and Park Avenue as they talked in low voices. Rich kids.
Oh yeah...
Of all things, it was this thought that jogged his memory.
He knew where he’d heard the name Trixie Frank.
* * *
Bad morning? Bad day.
Trixie hoped not.
First thing, she’d awakened to the horrifying realization that she hadn’t set her alarm and was forty minutes late. She’d leapt out of bed so fast, her legs didn’t have time to wake up and she ended up sprawled on the floor, uttering words for which her father’s butler Applegate would have washed her mouth out with soap.
She skipped breakfast, brushed her teeth, and dressed in a hurry, throwing on a wrap-around skirt and wrinkled white blouse. Luckily, her hair, with its natural curl and bob cut, required little primping. A quick wet-down and some frantic finger-fluffing did the job in a pinch. She snagged her purse and flew down the steps of her rooming house in Brooklyn to catch the next train into Manhattan.
The New York Morning Examiner offices were located in the McClintock Building in the 1700 block of Broadway. It was only one of a rash of new skyscrapers to rise in the city in the past two years. It boasted nineteen floors and housed the McClintock family’s wildly successful publishing enterprises, including the recently launched Examiner and an array of popular monthly magazines, True Love, True Crime and Movie Time.
Tearing across the lobby, Trixie signaled to the elevator boy just as he was ready to close the doors. He waited. “How are y’all this fine morning, Miss Frank?”
“Chipper as a dandy,” she mumbled as she worked her way into the crowded car. Three familiar fellows in suits, an office girl in a red cloche hat, a tall, rugged type in a rumpled coat and black fedora, and Bernice Fitzgibbons, a hotsy-totsy advice columnist for True Love. It was a tight squeeze. Trixie found herself wedged way too close to the guy in the fedora.
“Hi, Trix,” Bernice said brightly. “How’s tricks?”
“Swell,” Trixie said as if she hadn’t heard that quip every other day of her life.
Karl the elevator boy was young, an aspiring actor from Alabama or Louisiana or one of those states where life moved at a different pace. Normally, it didn’t bother Trixie, but today was different. She was hoping to get to her desk before her editor noticed her chair was empty.
Karl closed the outer door with a clank, then slid the inner mesh door closed before finally perching on his stool. “Bad mornin’?” he asked.
“Um, yes.” Trixie glanced down to notice that she’d donned one black shoe and one brown. Nuts.
Sensing that she was being observed, she caught the eye of the stranger in the fedora. Ebony hair, stormy blue gaze and five o’clock shadow at nine-thirty in the morning. Yowza.
Trixie’s cheeks burned. Was she ogling? She turned away. He was good looking, sure, but in a visceral, prizefighter sort of way, not like the college men she was used to. This one was not her type at all.
Trixie tried to put him out of her mind as she and the other passengers waited like eight neatly packed sardines, all eyes glued to the creeping elevator dial overhead. L... One... Two. At three, Karl stopped for the three young men to exit. Trixie took advantage of the extra room to put some air between herself and him.
Karl closed the doors. Four...five...
“So,” Bernice piped up breathily from behind. “Haven’t seen you around here before. Visiting?”
Trixie didn’t have to turn around to know who Bernice was talking to. That woman would vamp anything in pants. No doubt this one, with his powerful physique and conspicuously masculine aura, was setting off her Sheba bells like a four-alarm fire.
“Uh, yeah,” he said. His voice was deep and smooth. It was the kind of voice that could get around a girl if she let it.
Trixie kept her attention on the creeping floor dial. Six...seven. Even if he were her type, which he most definitely was not, she was immune to such earthy distractions. Men complicated things, interfered with career aspirations, demanded attention, broke hearts.
“Bernice Fitzgibbons,” Bernice said, not put off by her prey’s monosyllabic conversational style. “True Love.”
There was a hesitation, then, “What?”
Bernice tittered. “That’s the name of the magazine I write for. True Love. Heard of it?”
“No.”
“I’m not surprised. Not something a big fella like you would be interested in. Now, your wife, that’s different. I bet she’s heard of it.”
“I’m not married.”
“Oh, reeeallly?”
Trixie rolled her eyes. Bernice had purred that last word like the sultry equivalent of a Theda Bara come-hither leer from Cleopatra. No man would fall for that...would he?
Karl stopped on nine and let off the office girl in the cloche hat. They continued their rattling climb.
“Not married,” Bernice continued with a laugh. “Now, that surprises me. A big strapping fella like yourself sitting home alone at night. That just doesn’t seem ri—”
Trixie could stand it no longer. She coughed.
“—doesn’t seem—”
Trixie coughed again. Twice.
Bernice’s smoky tone flattened. “Trixie. Dear. You all right?”
Trixie hid a smile behind her hand. “Sorry. Swallowed a gumdrop.” She cleared her throat for good show. Eleven...twelve...
Stop.
Trixie waved at Bernice, who frowned in return, then nodded at Karl as she stepped out, feeling satisfied. “Thanks, Karl.”
“Sure thing, Miss Frank.”
The elevator doors closed behind her and she was nearly across the vestibule toward the double doors that led to the city room when she realized she wasn’t alone.
“Trixie Frank.”
Startled, she turned to see that Bernice’s manly prey had escaped and loomed menacingly behind her. “Yes?”
He reached for an inside pocket of his coat and Trixie caught a glimpse of a holstered revolver before she found herself staring dumbly at a City of New York Police Detective’s shield. Holy cow. Cop?
She scrambled to think if she’d written anything lately to annoy the authorities and thought not. At least, not since leaving her job at the Eagle. “Detective...?”
He replaced his badge. “Costigan. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“What? Uh, no. What’s this all ab—?”
“Where were you last night between eleven and twelve-thirty?”
The way he fired the question, Trixie got the idea he’d be glad to run all over her if she let him. She straightened her shoulders. “May I ask what this is about?”
“You may. After you answer my question.”
She didn’t like the question or his high-handed tone, but she was beginning to think there might be a story here. Something was cooking. “At that hour, I was at my apartment in Brooklyn. In bed.”
“Alone?”
She smiled. “Is that your way of asking if I’m married?”
He actually blinked and Trixie was gratified. This one wasn’t susceptible to feminine charms. Bernice had already established that, but it might help if she could get him to thaw a bit. People revealed more when they were relaxed. Even cops.
But he recovered quickly and he didn’t smile. “No, Miss Frank. That’s my way of asking if you were alone.”
Trixie appraised the stubble on his jaw and the shadows beneath those unsettling blue eyes. Hard night. Maybe no sleep at all. Crummy mood. “Yes, I was alone.”
“Are you acquainted with anyone named John Murphy?”
She held up a hand. “Wait a minute. I answered your question. What’s this all about?”
“What this is all about is John Murphy. Do you know him?”
The name sounded familiar. Trixie wished he’d stop with the too-knowing gaze. It made it impossible to think. “No, I don’t believe so, but it’s a common name. I meet a lot of people in my business. I’m a reporter.”
“I know who you are, Miss Frank. A lot of cops do.”
It was Trixie’s turn to blink. She hadn’t seen that coming, but she knew what he meant. “They do?” The swell of pride she felt at his recognition of her Eagle story was followed by chagrin at the thought of a thousand or so sorehead cops. “What do you mean by ‘a lot’?”
“We tend to remember when we’re called incompetent, wild goose-chasing boobs in print. Especially by a distinguished high-society dame such as yourself.”
Ah. He did know her, or at least of her, and if she wasn’t mistaken about that new glimmer in his eye, this was the thorn in his paw. Payback. He liked watching her squirm. Well, nuts to that. She lifted her chin. “I’m one hundred percent sure that I never actually used the word ‘boob,’ Detective.”
He smiled faintly at her rejoinder but it was a short reprieve. “You know any reason why John Murphy would have your business card?”
She opened her mouth, then shut it again. What business card? Was this a trick question? “No,” she answered cautiously. “Did something happen to Mr. Murphy?”
“Yeah. He got dead.” He nodded toward the city room doors behind her. “Maybe you’d know that if you bothered to get to work on time.” Again, he reached inside his coat, this time to extract an envelope. The envelope contained a photograph. “Look familiar?”
The object was a typical business card lying in grass. The lens of the camera had come close enough to make out some of the printed words but not the details of what was written in pencil. Still, it was enough. Trixie was careful to keep her expression neutral, but Costigan wasn’t fooled.
“Who was carrying this card?”
His tone was clipped, authoritative, compelling, but Trixie held her tongue. That name, John Murphy, rang a bell, all right. He was someone she’d heard of, someone a lot of people had heard of. She wanted to kick herself for being late. Costigan was as good as telling her that behind those city room doors the answer to who John Murphy was had probably come through on a wire service teletype or had been called in by their Centre Street reporter overnight. Maybe it was already being formed into a headline. Nuts!
“Who?” Costigan pressed again.
“You say this Murphy fellow had this card on him?”
Costigan didn’t reply.
“All right.” Trixie relented to his third-degree stare. “This doesn’t make sense because I gave that card to a little boy yesterday.”
“When yesterday?”
“Around noon. It was after the Christmas parade.”
“The boy have a name? An address? How do you know him?”
“We just met. He tried to steal my purse.”
Costigan looked skeptical.
“Never mind,” Trixie said before he could fire another question. “Long story. He was alone, no parents. I felt sorry for him. He said his name was Danny.”
Something changed in his eyes. It was subtle, but she recognized it. Interest. And if he was interested, so was she.
“Why’d you give a little kid your card?” he asked.
“I thought I might be able to help him.”
“You know how to find him?”
Trixie debated how much to reveal. Until she knew how the kid figured into this, she was reluctant to impart too much. “I don’t know how to find him, but...”
Costigan didn’t take her bait. At least not right away. Without taking his eyes off of her, he calmly replaced the photograph inside his coat.
As for Trixie, she’d been in such a hurry this morning, she hadn’t bothered to button her own coat. Now she wished she had. It might have helped to make her feel less exposed as his gaze dropped to take measure of her figure. Breasts, waist, hips, all the way down to her mismatched shoes, then all the way back up again. Her face grew warm. He’d had the same unsettling effect on her in the elevator.
“But?” he asked finally.
“I offered to pay him if he comes by the office this morning.”
Something in Costigan’s hard expression registered. “You think he’ll show?”
“I don’t know.” Trixie opened the door to the city room. “Why don’t we find out?”
Chapter Three
Sean had gotten precious little sleep and had no patience for anything that might be a waste of valuable time. He felt the clock ticking as he followed the lovely Miss Frank into the busy city room of the Morning Examiner.
It had been all Sean could do to cool his heels at the crime scene the previous night until the district commander put in an appearance. He had to move fast to avoid getting tossed from this case. That was why he hadn’t returned to the precinct to put in his report. Instead, he’d tapped Pete Burgen to accompany him across the street to the Plaza Hotel where John Murphy rented a residential suite.
After stepping off the elevator on the top floor, they’d found the door to Johnny’s suite unlocked and the
place in a shambles. There was no sign of Murphy’s newest flame, a Ziegfeld chorus girl named Lenore Stewart. This hadn’t come as a surprise.
They’d already questioned the night clerk, who had told them that Mr. Murphy and Miss Stewart had returned from an overnight trip at about eight in the evening Thursday. Shortly thereafter, Miss Stewart had left the hotel with Mr. Murphy’s driver, appearing to be in a high snit. According to the clerk, such displays were common. Miss Stewart and Mr. Murphy tended to spat regularly. When Mr. Murphy had stepped out later—shortly before midnight—he was alone.
Sean and Pete searched the premises. Pictures had been yanked from the walls, cushions and mattresses had been gutted, drawers had been emptied and closets ransacked. In the bedroom, an empty wall safe stood open, showing no sign of being forced. Sean sent Pete on his way and left the Plaza Hotel shortly before 2:00 a.m., just as two other detectives were stepping into the lobby.
Sean’s next stop was the one he dreaded most, to see Nell Murphy. Sean hadn’t spoken to her in fourteen years, but after she’d left Johnny two years before, he’d discreetly made it his business to know where she was and that she was safe, particularly from her own husband.
He needn’t have worried. Johnny was a crook and a killer but he wasn’t the vindictive type when it came to his women. He’d signed over to Nell the deed to a duplex in Grove Street and provided her with a generous income.
As far as Sean knew, Nell had lived a quiet life since, devoting more time to travel and shopping than to the flashy night life that had characterized her life with Johnny. Her name had disappeared from the gossip columns. Recently, it had appeared again in connection with her husband filing for divorce.
When Sean knocked on her door at two in the morning, he had to shut down an unexpected barrage of mixed emotions. Anger, regret, pain and an irrational, utterly pointless longing to put things right. The truth was, he’d loved Nell once, but that had been over a long time ago. He figured he still owed her this much, a personal visit before the morning papers hit the streets to tell her that her husband had been murdered.