Time Off for Murder

by Zelda Popkin

  "Rockey Nardello," Mary Carner said. "I never heard a more persistent name. Wherever we turn in this investigation, that man's name pops up."

  Johnny Reese broke in. "MacKinoy used to be in Harlem, didn't he?"

  "That's right."

  "Harlem's where Rockey made his dough. Harlem's where everybody plays the numbers. Right?" Johnny persisted.

  "Yessuh, boss." The super wagged his head. "Ev'body's fooling around wid Lady Luck up in Ha'lem."

  "O.K. I get what you're driving at, Reese," the Inspector said. "MacKinoy was a businessman. Played along with the Nardello racket." He looked again at the letter to the policeman's widow. "Wouldn't surprise me. Wouldn't surprise me at all. All that surprises me is that the D.A.'s office didn't bring it out in the trial." He raised one shoulder. "Who'm I to tell the D.A. his business? He was after Rockey. Rockey alone. That served his purpose." He lifted a telephone on the table, dialed the headquarters number once more. "Get out all the photos you have of the Nardello gang. I'll have somebody down to look at them." He turned back to the group in the living room. "That's what we'll do. We'll take the little lady and the janitor down-town to get a look at them. See if they recognize any of the muggs."

  Miss Franzine hunched her thin shoulders. She shuddered. "Oh, I'd rather not, officer. I wouldn't dare to." She clapped her hand over her mouth. "Oh, this is dreadful. It isn't safe…Why, it isn't even safe for me to stay here. I ought to move right out. I could break my lease here, couldn't I?"

  "Now, now. Take it easy, lady." The Inspector patted her shoulder reassuringly. "Nobody's gonna hurt you. Y'see, that's the way it is." He sounded aggrieved. "Citizens too scared to co-operate with the police. Now, lady," he looked benevolent but he spoke sternly. "Don't go losing your nerve. It's your duty as a citizen to help the police apprehend a criminal. You go get yourself a coat and hat. We won't take much of your time. A ride down-town. A coupla minutes at Headquarters and you're done. You got no choice, lady…. Don't you worry. You'll be perfectly safe."

  Yet as he reassured the timid spinster, Mary Carner kept thinking. "Phyllis was just a citizen trying to help the law. How safe was she?" The pit of her stomach tightened. She said: "Inspector, isn't there anyone else beside this woman? Any other tenants in the house who might have seen these people?"

  "Oh, sure. Sure. We'll get to 'em all. What about the others on the floor - across the hall, Reese?"

  "Nobody home."

  The fingerprint man came out of the kitchen, snapping his equipment bag shut. "All done, Inspector," he said. "That kitchen was quite a job. Those bottles. Raised some prints from some of them. Want me to take those chips and cards down-town?…You staying up here a while?…O.K. I'll call you back just as soon as I've got something. Let's have the phone number."

  Mary bent over the table to read the digits on the telephone dial for Clancey. Her elbow brushed the box of notepaper. She turned it over, opened it. The Inspector glanced at the box. "Oh, that," he said casually. "That must be where he got the paper for his letters. Dime store stuff, ain't it?"

  Mary nodded. "Clancey, will you take this downtown? It's all right for me to give him instructions, isn't it, Inspector? Will you have them get the Missing Persons File on Phyllis Knight? Take out the two letters she wrote last November, and compare the paper. Here, take the ink-bottle along, too. Compare the inks."

  The Inspector grimaced. "I don't see how I missed up on that."

  Mary said: "I've been on this case a half year longer than you, Inspector. Phyllis' own stationery was an expensive, grayish-blue paper. The letters she sent were on cheap white paper. Paper like this. I wonder." Her eyes brightened. "Oh, say, it's possible. It's more than possible. Maybe this is the place. Why, certainly, Phyllis could have been kept in this apartment for two weeks, for more than two weeks."

  Her glance circled the room, halted at the bars of sunlight, striping the table, the floor. "It suggests a prison," she said. "This room might have been her prison." She turned to Miss Franzine. "You were living here last fall," she said. "Have you any recollection of seeing or hearing a woman in this apartment?"

  Miss Franzine shook her head decisively. "No, I didn't. I never pay any attention to anybody else's affairs." But her eyes had widened. "Did you say a woman was kept prisoner up here - right next door to me? Not really, not really…."

  "I didn't say. I asked. Johnson, would you remember? Please try to think - a woman's voice, or any woman's things in the refuse from this apartment?"

  The super's head wagged slowly back and forth. "Ah nevuh see no woman up here. Ah solid don't. Ah nevuh see nothin' on'y Mist' McCabe whin he give me the rent."

  But the Inspector nodded approvingly. "You got something there, Miss Carner. What do you say we go inside and look around now?"

  Miss Franzine rose with him. "No, not you, Miss. You go over your place and put on your duds." He called a policeman, whispered: "Go with the dame. See she don't duck…O.K. Let's toss the bedroom first."

  A sheet had been drawn over the sleeping face of the dead policeman; his arms folded over his chest. The Medical Examiner had pushed the haberdashery back into a heap at the foot of the bed.

  The Inspector raised the sheet. The detectives looked down at the pale, handsome, slumbering face.

  "Mouth's shut," the Inspector complained. "Not another word out of him."

  Johnny Reese held his hat against his chest in the instinctive, reverential gesture of men in the presence of death. "I can't help it," he said solemnly. "I feel sorry for the guy."

  The Inspector raised his eyebrows. "A son-of-a-gun like that! Murderer. Disgrace to the force. Disgrace to his family…."

  Mary said quietly. "A man's innocent till he's proven guilty."

  "Softie. He's guilty all right. Else why'd he wanna do that? And serves him right. A guy like him. With a good future. Messing around with crooked stuff."

  "There's temptation," Mary said. "When the law makes crimes out of the things that people like to do - things like gambling, playing policy - somebody's going to find a cop who loves money, to help cheat the law."

  "Cut it out," said the Inspector sharply. "I ain't here to criticize the law, and you ain't neither. You're here to find out why he killed Phyllis Knight. Just that and nothing else. Get to work."

  "O.K. Is this clothing all MacKinoy's?" Mary pointed at the pile of men's apparel.

  The Inspector shrugged. "I wouldn't know."

  Mary fingered the garments. "Whoever it belonged to," she said, "he pampered himself. That's no bargain counter stuff. Those pajamas are ten dollars per in any store. We sell shirts like that - Blankfort's used to sell shirts like that - for five dollars each. The ties are imports…No, the stuff belonged to more than one man. This shirt's a size seventeen and a half, thirty-one sleeve - belongs to a thicknecked, short-armed man. The other's sixteen and a half neck, thirty-five sleeve man taller and a bit thinner, I'd guess. About MacKinoy's size. Two men's things. Why, yes." She held up two pairs of trousers, one of dark blue and one of gray. "One man was short and stubby, the other taller - not quite so heavy set…What's this?"

  The gray trousers dangled from her hand. There was a long, jagged rent in one leg, and near the cuff, a cluster of small, brown spots which might have been blood.

  "Where's the coat?" She dug into the pile of clothing. "Here…Here's the gray coat. No blood. But this." She pointed to the sleeve and shoulder. "Dirt and plaster dust…Maybe…Could it be? . . ." She placed the garments carefully on the bed. "Could it be that this was the suit that was worn by the man who carried Phyllis down those basement steps?"

  "Might be. Might be." The Inspector's eyes were alert. "Was it MacKinoy's? Tell you that in a minute."

  He draped the coat across the dead man's shoulders, stretched the sleeve from arm-pit to wrist.

  "Nope," he said ruefully. "Belongs to the short-arm guy, whoever he is…. Y'see what we got in all this stuff? We got the size of one of them other guys. How tall he was, how much he weighed.
His hair on the collar - even some of his dandruff."

  "But it's strange," said Mary, "that the suit's still here. Phyllis was killed six months ago. If this suit was worn by her murderer - or at her murder - why wasn't it cleaned or destroyed? Six months is a long time to keep incriminating evidence around. It doesn't make sense."

  "Look here, Inspector." Johnny Reese had been down on his knees near the closet. "Something's been dragged across here. There's a track from the closet to the dresser. And heel prints alongside it."

  The Inspector shook his head. "Dragged across is right. But more'n one set of heel prints. Place has been a regular promenade." He whipped a magnifying glass from his pocket. He studied the tracks on the floor.

  "Same guy," he announced. "Same guy was in the kitchen. The small guy with narrow feet." He uncovered the dead man's feet. "Not them tootsies. This on the floor is a number seven or eight. No twelve D."

  Mary came back from the bathroom. She had a pink silk night-gown and a satin negligee, maribou edged, over her arm, and an amber comb, carefully held in her hand. "There's a full set of cosmetics inside," she announced. "A woman has been here."

  "Phyllis Knight?"

  "Phyllis wouldn't need the cosmetics. Or go for fancy negligees. But there's light-colored hair in this comb."

  "I'll take it. Here, in this envelope. Drop it easy." The Inspector's face bore a look of grim satisfaction. "We're sitting pretty," he crowed. "The whole works dropping right in our laps."

  The telephone on the bedside table rang. The Inspector picked up the receiver. "Heinsheimer, speaking. Yes, Seiffert. Mrs. MacKinoy's out, eh? Yeh, what'd the maid say? She went shopping, eh? Somebody ought to tip her off to buy black. A matinee, huh? Nobody knows what show? Yeh, you leave word she's to get in touch with me the minute she comes in. Nice kids, eh? Three little girls, eh? Don't say a word to 'em. Not a word. Izzat so? Riverside Drive. High class set-up. He didn't do it on his pay, that's sure. Oh, you looked in the bureau drawer. You're learning, Seiffert. And about time. The hell you say! Dough in every Savings Bank in town. Crummy with it, eh? I'll be damned…. No, I don't know how long I'll be here. I got plenty to do today…I got a big case, busting wide open."

  He hung up. He said curtly to the detectives, "MacKinoy's a rich man. He didn't make it pounding a beat…. Aw right, let's go in the kitchen."

  The fingerprint man had turned off the leaking tap.

  Mary sniffed. She said. "Light housekeeping, all right. Alcohol and coffee. No diet for full-grown men. That's why MacKinoy died young."

  The Inspector plunged his hands into the black mess in the ice bucket in the sink. He stirred the soggy ashes with exploratory fingers. "Here's something. 1t didn't burn." His blackened fingers held a tiny looseleaf notebook with hard leather covers. "Take it, Reese, till I rinse my flippers."

  Fire and water had attacked the little book, but had not vanquished it. The fire had blackened the pages; the water had soaked the blackness in, made the ink run, but Johnny Reese could decipher something still. "Telephone numbers," he said gleefully. "In Harlem. University. Monument. Edgecomb. Bradhurst. All the Harlem exchanges."

  "Take it along," the Inspector ordered. "The boys'll work on it after they dry it out. Rest of the stuff's mush. Fire and water do a good job…. O.K. Now, let's pick up the piano teacher and get down-town."

  Chapter X

  The Inspector shut his office door against the reporters. "No statement, boys. Nothing to say. Come back at eight o'clock."

  The hands on the big clock on his office wall had reached quarter past six.

  The lady and the janitor had returned to Seventy-first Street, sworn to silence, and pledged police protection. Their service to law and order and crime detection had been rendered in a melodramatic moment when Inspector Heinsheimer had spread a frieze of Rogues Gallery portraits on his desk.

  "Fine bunch of muggs. Ever see any of them before?"

  Miss Franzine had taken two steps toward the desk, three steps back. She had covered her eyes. "I can't," she had wailed. "I wouldn't dare."

  "Lady, you ain't gonna make it harder for all of us? Nobody'll know you said a word."

  Miss Franzine's dark eyes had roved the circle of photographs, then had stopped, narrowed. Her breath had quickened as her forefinger dropped on a picture.

  "That one. On the steps that night. He kicked my dog. That's the man."

  "The hell you say. Know who you're pointing at? Rockey Nardello. The big boy himself."

  The super had quivered like chocolate pudding.

  "Tha's Rockey? The big boy fum the numbahs? He been in mah house?…Hones' boss, Inspectuh, Ah'm tellin' you gawds hones' truf. Ah nevuh had no idee at all Rockey Nardello was livin' in mah house…." His eyes had been big and white as egg cups. "Y'ain't holdin' me for what he done, is y'all, boss? That man's low. Too low to be carryin' guts to a buzzard. Yessuh, boss. Solid is."

  When they had gone and the reporters had been sent away, Inspector Heinsheimer turned to the detectives, slumped wearily before his desk. "Go on. Drink your coffee," he commanded. "It's lunch. Supper. Miss C., eat that sandwich. What's the matter with it? Don't you like ham? Ain't kosher, are you? Can't live on coffee and cigarettes. O.K., then. Hand it over."

  He nipped the sandwich in half with a single bite.

  "Now listen, you two," he began, his words muffled by ham on rye, "the D.A. runs a big show last fall and sends Rockey Nardello up the river, but nothing comes out about MacKinoy or any other big shots. He leaves the dirt for us to dig up. And we find a flat that could be hide-out and business headquarters for the outfit. Now, you wanna know what I think? I think that woman lawyer spotted the layout and that's why she got bumped off."

  "Then why wasn't she - " Mary started to interrupt.

  "Don't butt in, Miss C. Sit still and listen to papa. Clancey came across handsome…. Not at fifty-nine All he got out of there was a couple of prints of some colored dame that got sent up in the Gordon raid. Name of Bessie Jackson. Got thirty days from the judge, but who knows where she is now? Couple of her prints on the underside of some of the plates. And that proves it, see. The dishes came from the house next door and the supper party came from the same place. Some guys that would just as lief not be seen by Flo's regular customers. Now, who wouldn't want to be seen? Well, a guy like MacKinoy, who's in good standing on the force and is doing business with the boys in the rackets. So I figure he could be chair number one at that supper party. And then we come to a guy like Rockey that's going on trial the next day and wouldn't want nobody to see him at Flo's place. He could be chair number two. And then that small guy that cleaned out the apartment. Maybe he's a feller that could easy be recognized. So he wouldn't want to be seen around Gordon's house in the evenings even if he was a friend of hers. But he could be chair number three. Now, get me straight. I figure MacKinoy's flat was a hang-out for the Nardello gang. Clancey got MacKinoy's prints off the gun and Rockey's prints off some of the bottles. And he got three guys that we know were working with Rockey: Conkey Zeisser and Frankie Storch and Milt Marks. Only Conkey's dead and Frankie and Milt are on the lam. And the Franzine woman recognized Rockey's picture. So we know for a fact that Rockey hung out with MacKinoy in that Seventy-first Street place, and if they were all pals together, why wouldn't they be going up to Flo Gordon's - her being a chum of Rockey's - for a snack and a talk, specially if Flo's got them fixed up with a private dining room next door."

  Mary said: "That would account for three of them. How about the fourth? And which one used the lipstick?"

  The Inspector frowned. "In a gang like that there could be one queer. Leave it be for now. I'll come back to it later. I want to get the rest of it off my chest. Now, Rockey's up the river. But New York ain't stopped playing policy just because the big cheese is in the cooler. Not by a damn sight. Rockey's organization is running. And one of Rockey's partners was in touch with MacKinoy. This guy - whoever he is - got a tip off that MacKinoy was going to kill himself, and he snapped
right into it and beat it up to the flat, and cleaned it out of everything that could of given him away. A wise baby. Smart enough to keep his gloves on. Now, we don't know if he burned up the papers or if MacKinoy did, or if they were his things or MacKinoy's. But all the numbers in that little book that didn't get burned up are all stationery stores and pool rooms and grills in Harlem - the kind of places where they take the numbers. In MacKinoy's old precinct. Now the torn suit with the spots on the pants…That was made for a guy the size of Rockey Nardello. And the dirt and plaster on the shoulder of the coat checks all right with the wall of the basement of fifty-nine and if the spots on the pants turns out to be blood-stains, I'm willing to bet that the tough guy himself was the one carried the Knight dame down the steps and dumped her in the furnace. And he's been locked up since the middle of October, so that might account for him not cleaning up that suit. Now the Ramon Allones cigars. High class goods."