Who Has Wilma Lathrop?

by Keene, Day

  The desk sergeant looked up incuriously. “Yes, sir? What can I do for you?”

  Lathrop felt like a fool. “I want to report a missing wife.”

  The sergeant poised a fountain pen over the docket. “Yes, sir. What’s the name?”

  “Lathrop. James Lathrop.”

  “And your wife’s name?”

  “Wilma.”

  “Address?”

  “Thirty-two-thirty-eight Palmer Square.”

  The plain-clothes man checking the arrest sheet grinned. “I thought you looked familiar. You’re the schoolteacher who owns the grey-stone three-flat a few doors from the corner of Kedzie, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right,” Lathrop admitted.

  “I live in the apartment building on the corner,” the detective told him. He pushed his hat back on his forehead. “Now, what’s this about your wife being missing?”

  “Just that. When I woke up this morning she was gone.”

  “You mean she’s been gone only a few hours?”

  “That’s right. She must have left some time between midnight and morning.”

  The desk sergeant chuckled. “How long have you been married, fellow?”

  “Three months,” Lathrop told him.

  “You and the missus have a fight last night?”

  “On the contrary. Everything was very harmonious.”

  “You just woke up and she was gone?”

  “That’s the way it was.”

  “Did you call her family?”

  A lump formed in Lathrop’s throat and he swallowed with an effort. “I couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know if she has a family.”

  A white-haired man in his early fifties, the booking sergeant leaned both elbows on his desk. “I see. Well, now, if I were you, Mr. Lathrop, I wouldn’t be too worried. Women do funny things. I know. I’ve been married for thirty years. And the chances are that Mrs. Lathrop has just stepped out for a few minutes. Maybe to get sugar biscuits for breakfast, or a pound of coffee.”

  Lathrop resented the older man’s opinion of his intelligence. “At seven o’clock in the morning?” he asked coldly. “In this kind of weather? In her nightdress?”

  The white-haired man stopped smiling. “You mean none of her clothes are gone?”

  “I didn’t check her dresses,” Lathrop admitted. “But both her cloth coat and her fur coat are still hanging in the closet.”

  “Oh-oh,” the sergeant said. “One of those queer ones, eh?” He looked at the detective. “You want to take it, Lieutenant?”

  The detective replied, “I’ll be happy to be of service, if I can.” He added, as an afterthought, “The name is Jezierna, Mr. Lathrop. Lieutenant Jezierna. Suppose we step into my office.”

  The office was small, cluttered with a battered desk, two chairs, and a filing case. Lathrop sat in the chair that Jezierna indicated.

  “Now, let’s start at the beginning,” the Lieutenant said. “You’re a man of above-average intelligence or you wouldn’t be teaching high school. Why are you so worried? What makes you think your wife just hasn’t stepped out for a few minutes?”

  Lathrop took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Because of the two men in the parking lot and the envelope they gave me to give to Wilma.”

  Jezierna made a note on his pad. “When was this, Mr. Lathrop?”

  “Last night.”

  “Where?”

  “In the Juvenile Court parking lot.”

  “What were you doing down there?”

  “I was appearing as a witness in a case in which one of my pupils was involved.”

  “I see. And what was in this envelope these two men gave you to give to Mrs. Lathrop?”

  Lathrop said, “I didn’t count the money, but I’d say there was approximately five thousand dollars in it.”

  Lieutenant Jezierna laid his pencil carefully on his memo pad. “You aren’t kidding me, are you, Mr. Lathrop? This isn’t a gag of some kind?”

  It was hot in the small office. Lathrop unbuttoned his overcoat and laid his hat on the desk. “I know it sounds fantastic. It is. But it happened.” He lit a cigarette and gave Lieutenant Jezierna a detailed account of his encounter with the two men.

  When he finished, Jezierna asked, “You can identify these men?”

  “I think so.”

  “But you’re not positive?”

  “No. It was dark in the lot. I had only one good look at them. All I’m certain of is that they were both big men, well dressed. At first I was under the impression they were detectives.”

  “Now, let’s see if I have this straight,” Jezierna said. “Both men knew or claimed to know Mrs. Lathrop. And they told you to give her the envelope they gave you, a brown Manila envelope containing about five thousand dollars in fifty- and one-hundred-dollar bills.”

  “That’s right,” Lathrop said. “Then they beat hell out of me with a blackjack. Then when they got me down on the ground, they kicked me unconscious.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police last night?”

  “I wanted to talk to my wife first.”

  “That’s understandable. And what did Mrs. Lathrop have to say?”

  “She said it must have been a case of mistaken identity, that she didn’t know any such men. That they must have thought I was some other Lathrop.”

  “And you bought that?”

  “I had no reason not to.”

  “No,” Jezierna admitted, “not from what you’ve told me so far. Now tell me this: Are you sure you didn’t accuse your wife of knowing these two men and you and Mrs. Lathrop quarrelled last night?”

  Lathrop could feel his face colouring. “No. Everything was very harmonious. Even more so than usual.” He hesitated briefly. “But looking back, I believe now that Wilma was just trying to keep me from thinking, from continuing the discussion.”

  Jezierna was understanding. “Yeah. I think I know what you mean. Women have ways of distracting men. Did you ever hear of this Louie the two men mentioned?”

  “No.”

  “Does the name Prentiss mean anything to you?”

  “No, it does not.”

  Jezierna picked up his pencil again. “Hmm. From what you’ve told me, this could be serious, Mr. Lathrop. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. You give me Mrs. Lathrop’s description and I’ll get it out on the air right away, just in case she is in a jam of some kind. Then you go back home and wait and my partner and I will be over in about an hour.”

  Lathrop protested, “But I’m supposed to be at school in an hour.”

  “Call a substitute,” Jezierna advised him. “Frankly, if you’re levelling with me, I don’t like this business about the two men putting pressure on Mrs. Lathrop by threatening to beat you up. How old is Mrs. Lathrop?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  Jezierna recorded the information on his pad. “And the colour of her hair?”

  “Blonde.”

  “Eyes?”

  “Grey with a greenish cast.”

  “Height?”

  “Approximately five feet.”

  “Weight?”

  “About a hundred pounds.” Lathrop added, “And she’s very pretty.”

  Lieutenant Jezierna discounted the information. “All brides of three months are pretty. Unless they get mixed up with the wrong guy. And it looks as if Mrs. Lathrop may have done just that. What was her maiden name?”

  “Wilma Stanis.”

  Jezierna rolled the name on his tongue. “Stanis, eh? That sounds as if it might be a contraction. You know, from Stanislaw or Stanislaus. Your wife is of Polish extraction?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “Just that. She never talked about her family.”

  “You don’t know if they live in Chicago?”

  “No.”

  “Or if she has a family?”

  “No. When I met her she was living alone at the Devonshire Hot
el.”

  Lieutenant Jezierna returned his pencil to his pocket. “This was how long ago?”

  “About five months.”

  Jezierna stood up behind his desk. “Excuse me for saying so, Mr. Lathrop, but for all your education, you don’t seem very bright. If you went out to buy a new car, you’d insist on knowing all about it; the horsepower, the mileage, the reputation of the firm that made it. More, you’d insist on an ironclad guarantee for at least the first ten thousand miles. But you go ahead and marry a girl about whom you know absolutely nothing. Where did you meet Mrs. Lathrop?”

  “At a studio party.”

  “Where?”

  “On the near north side.”

  “Who introduced you?”

  “I don’t remember. But a fellow teacher of mine, Bill Hendry, was giving the party.”

  “And his address?”

  “I don’t remember the number, but it’s the Eldorado Apartment Hotel on Rush Street.”

  “O.K.,” Jezierna said. “I guess that’s all we can do here. Usually, I wouldn’t be concerned about a wife walking out until she’s been gone for two or three days. But this is the first time I’ve ever heard of a bride of three months leaving between midnight and six o’clock in the morning, in nothing but her nightdress, with the thermometer standing at ten above zero. You go on home and I’ll see you in about an hour.”

  Lathrop drove back to the apartment. Neither Dr. Klein nor Mr. Metz had left for work yet. The snow on the front steps was unbroken. A triple set of footprints led back into and out of the areaway, made by himself, the milkman, and the janitor.

  Lathrop walked back down the areaway. Mrs. Metz, wearing a heavy shawl around her shoulders, was lifting a bottle of milk from the box on the back porch.

  “Good morning, Mr. Lathrop.” She smiled. “And how is our landlord this morning?”

  “Fine. Just fine,” Lathrop lied. He started up the stairs to the second floor and turned back. “You haven’t seen Mrs. Lathrop, have you, Mrs. Metz?”

  “This morning?”’

  “Yes.”

  Mrs. Metz was puzzled. “So early?” She shook her head.

  “No, I haven’t. I haven’t seen Mrs. Lathrop since she came in last evening with her knees all bloody from falling down on the walk. Tell me. Is something wrong?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Lathrop admitted, and walked on up the stairs.

  Full daylight intensified the empty feeling of the flat. The sink was still filled with dirty pots and pans from the meal of the night before. The dish-littered table on which they’d dined by candlelight was still uncleared. Lathrop walked on into the front room. Wilma’s black net négligé was still on the floor by the sofa. He started to pick it up and thought better of the idea. Lieutenant Jezierna would want to see the flat untouched.

  He phoned his school and asked the clerk to get a substitute, then attempted to look up the phone number of the optician who had made his glasses. The name was clear but the figures were blurred. As long as he wasn’t going to school, it didn’t matter. He could go to the shop sometime during the day.

  His first feeling of having been put upon was fading. Now he was merely worried. If Wilma had lied to him about not knowing the two men, she’d had a reason. It was the first time since they’d been married that she’d lied to him. Lieutenant Jezierna’s insinuation that she might not be all she should be was so much hogwash. If a man didn’t know his own wife, who did? Still, last night Wilma had seemed different.

  Lathrop checked the bedroom closet to find out if any of her dresses were missing. All of the dresses he remembered were hanging in the closet. So were her sweaters and her white wool sports coat. She couldn’t have left the flat wearing nothing but a sheer nightdress, but it seemed she had.

  He returned to the living-room and sat in one of the over-stuffed chairs, trying not to look at the sofa. Things like this didn’t happen to men in his position. Such things happened only to strangers one read about in the newspapers. However, in one respect Lieutenant Jezierna was right. Most men did know something of their wives’ backgrounds and where they came from. All he knew about Wilma was that she was young and lovely.

  It was almost nine o’clock when Lieutenant Jezierna drove up in front of the building. He rang the bell in the vestibule and climbed the front stairs, accompanied by another man.

  “My partner, Sergeant Meyers,” Jezierna introduced the stocky younger man.

  Sergeant Meyers shook hands with Lathrop. “I hear you’re having some trouble. Mind if we look around?”

  “Of course not,” Lathrop said.

  The two men prowled the flat, seeing everything, missing nothing. Lieutenant Jezierna remarked on the filled sink and uncleared dining-room table. “The missus didn’t get around to doing the dishes last night, eh?”

  “No,” Lathrop replied, “she didn’t.”

  “Does she usually wash her supper dishes in the morning?”

  “No,” Lathrop said. “Last night was the first time I’ve ever known her to let the dishes go. We usually do them together. She washes and I wipe.”

  “That could mean something,” Meyers said. “Think back, Mr. Lathrop. Would you say Mrs. Lathrop acted differently than usual last night?”

  “Yes,” Lathrop said, “I would.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, for one thing, she’d been drinking. And she had a pitcher of Martinis waiting. Then she insisted that I open a bottle of wine with our meal.”

  “She drinks to excess?”

  “No. Last night was the first time I’ve ever known her to take more than two drinks.”

  “Did she seem emotionally overwrought?”

  “Thinking back, yes.”

  Sergeant Meyers returned to the living-room and stood looking at the négligé, trailing from the sofa to the grey broadloom on the floor. The position of the pillows and the rumpled condition of the sofa gave mute evidence. He asked, “Am I wrong in assuming that you and Mrs. Lathrop spent some time in here?”

  Lathrop felt his face colour. “No.”

  “At whose suggestion?”

  “I’d say it was mutual. We’d been talking about the men who’d slugged me and the envelope and what to do about it. Then she asked me if I loved her and I told her I did. And she said she loved me, I’d never know how much.”

  “I see,” Meyers said. He picked up a framed picture of Wilma, a picture she’d had made at Lathrop’s insistence, from the record player. “And this is a picture of Mrs. Lathrop?”

  “Yes,” Lathrop said.

  Sergeant Meyers returned the framed picture to the record player. “Well, I still can’t tell you where she is or why she walked out on you, but unless I’m very much mistaken, I’ve seen Mrs. Lathrop’s picture before.”

  “Where?” Lathrop asked him.

  Sergeant Meyers removed his hat and ran a crooked forefinger around its leather sweatband. “Nothing personal, understand, Mr. Lathrop?”

  “Where?” Lathrop repeated.

  Sergeant Meyers told him. “On a ‘wanted’ dodger sent out by the New York police about ten months ago. But the name she was using then was Gloria Fine.”

  Lathrop’s lips felt stiff. “You must be mistaken.”

  “That could be,” the detective admitted. “I hope so. But if she’s the girl I think she is, she’s wanted for questioning for both robbery and murder.” Meyers looked at Lieutenant Jezierna. “You remember, Stan. That Sutton Place penthouse stick-up when a wholesale jeweller was killed. As I recall the dodger, she was listed as Raoul Contini’s mistress.” Meyers returned his hat to his head. There was grudging admiration in his voice. “That’s quite an idea, at that — dropping out of sight by marrying a Chicago schoolteacher.”

  Chapter Four

  THE SIXTH-FLOOR office at 1121 South State Street was large and well lighted. Even so, from time to time Lathrop removed his borrowed glasses and wiped at his strained eyes with his handkerchief. He’d looked at so many pictures throu
gh glasses not fitted to him that his eyes were beginning to rebel.

  “You don’t make any of them, eh?” Lieutenant Jezierna asked him.

  Lathrop shook his head. “No. At least not so far.” He glanced at the picture. The two men who had attacked him in the parking lot had not been Raoul Contini, Wilma’s alleged lover, and Frenchy Schaeffer, the jewel thief’s partner in the New York robbery. Nor had he been able to pick out his attackers from the hundreds of pictures he’d been shown.

  “Tough,” Sergeant Meyers said. “The way it stands right now, we don’t even know who she’s afraid of. But I doubt very much if Mrs. Lathrop left the flat barefooted in her nightdress.”

  Captain Kelly of Identification agreed with him. “So do I. What husband can give an accurate description or itemized list of his wife’s clothes? She could have a coat and dress that Lathrop never saw. Besides, according to what New York told me over the phone, Gloria was a flashily dressed doll. You know, Dior originals and mink stoles and stuff like that.” Kelly picked a typed list from his desk. “According to the description of the clothes you boys found in the flat, the things she left behind are more in keeping with the character she assumed, a secretary. Or a schoolteacher’s wife.”

  Lathrop sat quietly, listening to the words passing across the desk but not quite comprehending them. The whole affair was foreign to him. He had nothing to do with the police. Not that he was any angel. He’d never pretended to be. But up to now, his only connection with the law had been to pay an occasional fine for overparking.

  Lieutenant Jezierna asked, “Are you fellows going to take it from here, Kelly? Or do you want Abe and me to keep working on it?”

  “Let’s work on it together,” Captain Kelly suggested. “So far, we don’t even know what we have or whose baby it is. It could be Missing Persons. It could be Homicide. It could belong to Robbery. After all, all we have on the dame is a hold and notify. We don’t even know who or where this Louie is where she was to meet the two guys. Or why they should have given Lathrop five grand to give to her as her cut on the Prentiss job. Or what the Prentiss job was. It’s not on our books or in the New York open files.”

  “True,” Sergeant Meyers admitted.

  Kelly continued: “You boys know Logan Square and the Palmer Square district. You may pick up a lead out there. We’ll work on it from here and the bi-city angle. The way I see it is this: That Sutton Place job was a two-hundred-grand affair. None of the jewels have been recovered. Raoul and Frenchy and Gloria all dropped out of sight about the same time. Maybe Gloria has the pretties, maybe not. From the way the lads in the parking lot talked, the chances are she has them and has been holding out on them. So they put up five grand as evidence of their good faith and called for a showdown.”