Who Has Wilma Lathrop?

by Keene, Day

  Jezierna asked, “But why contact her through Lathrop?”

  Kelly considered the matter. “Lathrop says she was upset and had been drinking when he got home last night. Maybe they’d already been to the flat and talked tough to her and, scared as she was, she talked right back.” Captain Kelly consulted a file card on his desk. “We know she knows her way around. Her record proves that. So the two hoods who slugged Lathrop, whoever they are, schemed up that deal in the parking lot to show her they weren’t kidding. They merely slapped Lathrop around, but she knew, now they’d found her, what they’d do to her if she didn’t come across. So last night, after lying to Lathrop, after telling him she didn’t know what it was all about and then getting him so he didn’t care, she waited until he was asleep, then got up and dressed and took the five grand for pocket money and took off. That would be between midnight and three o’clock, before it began to snow.” Kelly shrugged. “And with that much of a start, God knows where she is now.”

  “That sounds reasonable to me,” Lieutenant Jezierna nodded his agreement. “Yeah. I’ll buy that. But the question is, where is she now? She could be holed up in Chicago, or, with that much of a start, if she grabbed a plane she could be in L.A. or San Francisco.”

  Lathrop asked the question that had been troubling him all day. “How can you be so certain that the girl I married as Wilma Stanis is this Gloria Fine?”

  Lieutenant Jezierna said, “You were there when the fingerprint experts went over your flat this morning?”

  “I was.”

  “Well, they got a perfect set. A print of every finger on both hands.” Jezierna laid two cards in front of Lathrop. “I know you’re not a fingerprint technician, but give me a layman’s opinion. Would you say the prints on these two cards are similar?”

  Lathrop wiped his borrowed glasses on his handkerchief and examined the two cards. As far as he could tell, the whorls and arches and loops on both cards were identical. “Yes,” he said, “I would.”

  “Your wife’s,” Jezierna said. He laid another card in front of Lathrop. “Now read the data on her file card.”

  Lathrop’s eyes stopped at the pictures. There was a full face and a profile picture. The girl was Wilma, three years younger, hard-eyed, defiant, but Wilma. The caption read: “Wilma Stanislawow, alias Gloria Fine. Age 18; height 5 ft.; weight 100; hair blonde; eyes grey; complexion fair.” Below the description was a record of her arrests. It included two arrests for disorderly conduct, which could mean anything, one arrest for passing a bad cheque and one on suspicion of grand larceny.

  Jezierna took the card out of his hand. “Enough?”

  “Plenty,” Lathrop said. He walked to the window and looked out at the silhouetted skyline of the Loop. The long day had grimed the snow. In the purple haze of deepening night, the white blanket had turned grey, soot-specked where it lay on the rooftops, heaped in dirty piles where the rotary ploughs had flung it. He pressed his forehead to the glass and the cold hard surface felt good.

  From behind him, Lieutenant Jezierna said, “You may remember I remarked the name Stanis could be a contraction when you came to the station this morning.”

  “Yes,” Lathrop said. “I remember.”

  Captain Kelly was sympathetic. “Look. I know how this has hit you, Mr. Lathrop. And us pounding at you all day hasn’t helped things any. Why don’t you go home and get some rest?”

  Lathrop turned and stood with his back to the window. “I would appreciate that.”

  “That’s all for to-night, then,” Kelly said. “We’ll want to talk to you to-morrow, though. So if I were you, I’d stay home from school.”

  “Whatever you say,” Lathrop said. He laid the borrowed glasses on the desk and left the office.

  He’d never been so tired. It wasn’t a good feeling, this knowing that Wilma had played him for a sucker; that every whispered tenderness had been a lie; that even on the last night they would ever spend together, her love-making had had only one purpose. In her mind he had never been her husband. All he had been was a chump, a cover-up. Lathrop pushed the button for the elevator, then turned and walked back to the office.

  “Now what?” Kelly asked him.

  “I just wondered,” Lathrop said, “if you know anything about Wilma’s family.”

  Jezierna shook his head. “We’d be there right now if we did. But we don’t even know if she has a family. There’s no Stanislawow in the directory and all the local addresses on her card are at least two years old. We figure she met Contini and took off for New York about then.”

  “I see,” Lathrop said. “Just one more question.”

  “Yes?”

  “Those arrests for disorderly conduct … just what sort of disorderly conduct?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jezierna said. “I see what you mean.” He studied the code markings on the card. “For whatever satisfaction it is, one was for acting as a shill for a gambling house. It doesn’t say what the other was. But it isn’t what you’re thinking. The only man we’ve been able to link her to, so far, is Raoul Contini.”

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot,” Lathrop said.

  He felt mildly relieved as he walked back to the elevator.

  There was a news-stand in front of the building. Lathrop bought an evening paper and walked through the cold towards the distant lights of the Loop. He realized vaguely that he was hungry and ate in a white-tiled lunchroom at the corner of State and Van Buren. The newspapers had picked up the story. He found it on the third page, a small stick about an inch long. He could read the caption without his glasses:

  High-School Teacher’s Wife

  Mysteriously Disappears

  The story undoubtedly named him and hinted at why Wilma had walked out during the night. The five W’s of journalism — who, where, what, why, and when. It was a nuisance to be without his glasses. He hoped that Dr. Lynn would have his new ones ready in the morning. A man really should have a spare pair of glasses. And a spare heart.

  Half finished, he pushed aside his meal, paid his check, and left the lunchroom. He continued north on State Street, glancing idly in the windows that he passed. It was a funny feeling. He felt more like a bystander than a participant It was as if the thing had happened to some other person and he was viewing it from a distance. Perhaps because he was still in love with Wilma. Love wasn’t something a man turned on and off like a faucet.

  The cold intensified. His hands and the tip of his nose felt numb. On the corner of Lake Street he paused, debating whether to call a cab and go home or turn into the next bar he came to. He chose to go home. He could get as stiff at home as he could in a bar, and without making an ass of himself.

  The heat in the cab felt good. He rode looking out the window, wondering where Wilma was. It had been about this time he’d come home the night before — only then Wilma had been waiting.

  “I thought you’d never get here,” she’d told him.

  And he’d said he was sorry. Subconsciously, Lathrop repeated the words aloud.

  The cab driver slid back the glass partition. “You say something, mister?”

  “No. Just talking to myself,” Lathrop told him.

  The square had lost its pristine whiteness but the snow was cleaner than that in the Loop. As the cab stopped in front of the building, Lathrop was annoyed to find that Nielsen hadn’t shovelled the walk. He waded through the snow in the areaway to the rear of the building. His plump face red with cold, rubbing his palms together to warm them, Mr. Metz was just emerging from the boiler room.

  “It’s about time,” the first-floor tenant greeted him. “So you have trouble, I’m sorry. But when a man pays one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month rent, the least he should have is heat. And maybe even a little hot water.”

  “What’s the matter?” Lathrop asked him. “Did the janitor let the fire get low?”

  Metz hooted. “Low? All day in our flat it has been like ice. At least, so Mrs. Metz tells me when I come home a few minutes ago. So I go down t
o look at the fire. And what do I find? It’s out.

  Mrs. Metz heard their voices and came out on her back porch. “All day, like ice,” she repeated. “And no hot water. The garbage still in the cans. Not since he broke the fire this morning has the janitor been here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lathrop said. “I’ll get the fire going at once. Then I’ll get hold of Nielsen or I’ll get a new janitor.”

  Mr. Metz refused to be mollified. “And it shouldn’t happen again.” He repeated what he’d said before. “For one hundred and twenty-five dollars, and I pay on the first every month, the least we should have is heat.”

  Mrs. Metz tried to calm him. “Now, Papa. Who is blaming Mr. Lathrop? Can he help it if the union sends him out a drunken bummer? He says he will make a fire. And he has troubles of his own.” Mrs. Metz shrugged her ample bosom. “In and out all day, detectives. No wonder you are asking me when I am bringing in the milk, have I seen Mrs. Lathrop.” She made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Such a pretty little thing.” She confided, “But I could have told you this would happen, the first day he came around.”

  “Who came around?” Lathrop asked her.

  Mrs. Metz said, “The young man with his hair cut like a duck. Too sharp dressed he was. And always he went up the back way.”

  “You mean a man called on my wife?”

  “Once always, sometimes twice a week,” Mrs. Metz said. “Sometimes in the morning right after you went to school. Sometimes in the afternoon. And always he stayed an hour or more.”

  Lathrop blew on his hands to warm them. “You told the police this?”

  Mrs. Metz shrugged. “So who asked me? All they are wanting to know from me is how you and Mrs. Lathrop got along and if I am hearing any noise during the night.”

  “I see,” Lathrop said.

  Mr. Metz climbed the enclosed stairs. “Inside now, Mamma,” he said. “Is too cold to be standing on back porches.”

  Mrs. Metz allowed herself to be guided back into her kitchen. Lathrop watched the door blot out the rectangle of light, then descended to the boiler room. He found even the ashes in the heating plant cold.

  Cursing Nielsen under his breath, he took off his overcoat and suit coat and shook the fire grates clean, then started a fresh fire with kindling from the pile of wood near the coal bin. The mysterious young man with the duck-tail haircut and the questions that the police had asked Mrs. Metz opened several new schools of thought. For all their concern, the police apparently thought he had something to do with Wilma’s disappearance.

  The steam plant was old. The flues needed cleaning. So did the ash pit. It was an hour before the fire was burning to Lathrop’s satisfaction. While he waited, he shovelled the ash pit clean and rolled the accumulated cans of ashes out into the areaway. If Nielsen did show up, he meant to fire him.

  When the gauge began to show steam, Lathrop set the drafts and climbed the stairs to his own flat. The last policeman or detective to leave must have forgotten to snap the spring latch. The kitchen door was closed but unlocked.

  Lathrop locked the door behind him, then lit the kitchen light. Nothing had changed during the hours he’d spent at Central Bureau. The sink was still stacked with pans from the night before. The dining-room table was still uncleared.

  Lathrop dropped the coat he was carrying on to a kitchen chair, washed his hands at the sink, then phoned the emergency number the business agent of the janitors’ union had given him.

  That official was unperturbed. “Your man probably got drunk,” he said. “And if it’s any consolation, you’re not alone, Mr. Lathrop. Yours is the fourth call I’ve had today. We have a lot of trouble this time of year. By the time the boys bank their fires, it’s almost time to break them again. And what with this hustling the garbage and shovelling the walks, besides their regular cleaning, they sometimes take a nip too many. Can you handle the fire box to-night?”

  Lathrop assured him that he could.

  “Good,” the official said. “I’ll send out a new man in the morning.”

  As Lathrop hung up, he realized his hands were still grimed and walked into the bathroom to wash them again. The hot-water system was dependent on the boiler. The water from the hot-water tap ran lukewarm. He cleansed the grime from his hands as best he could and was drying them on one of Wilma’s best guest towels, leaving streaks of powdered coal dust, when he sensed motion behind him and realized he wasn’t alone.

  The voice was young and feminine and bitter. “So you finally got here.”

  For a moment, Lathrop thought Wilma had come home. He turned his head without moving his body and looked at the girl over his shoulder. She was small and blonde. But there all resemblance to Wilma ended. Whoever she was, she was at least five years younger than Wilma. She was also holding a revolver. And the revolver was pointed at him.

  “Who are you?” Lathrop asked her.

  “I’m Eddie Mandell’s girl.”

  “Oh,” Lathrop said. “I see. What’s the idea of the gun?”

  The girl’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t give Eddie a break. Well, maybe I won’t give you one. How would you like to be five months pregnant and have your man sent away for five years?”

  After the day he’d spent, the girl’s appearance was almost ludicrous. Lathrop resisted a hysterical impulse to laugh. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that one. In my case, nature seems to have made such a situation a physical impossibility.”

  Chapter Five

  THE GIRL looked more frightened than vicious. Her eyes were puffed from weeping. More tears lay just under the surface. “That’s right. Make fun of me.”

  “Believe me,” Lathrop said, “I’m not making fun of you. I’m in rather a mess myself.”

  “You mean your wife walking out on you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I read about it in the paper to-night, while I was waiting.”

  Lathrop turned and leaned against the washbowl. “Then you know I’m not making fun of you. So you’re Eddie’s girl. What’s your name?”

  “Jenny.”

  “Jenny what?”

  “Why should you care?”

  “Maybe because I like Eddie.”

  “Yeah. Sure. A lot you care about Eddie. You wouldn’t even lie for him.”

  The girl was nearly hysterical. She was pointing the loaded gun at him. Lathrop supposed he should be frightened. He wasn’t. He just felt numb. “No, I wouldn’t He,” he said. “And you know why as well as I do, Jenny. If Eddie got away with this stick-up, he’d try another. And one night someone would be killed. Maybe Eddie. Maybe the man he was holding up. Then where would you and Eddie be?”

  The girl’s lower lip quivered. “Talk. Talk. That’s all any of you can do. You’re all against us because we’re kids. You don’t care. No one cares that I’m going to have a baby. No one but Eddie.”

  “That’s why Eddie stuck up the drugstore?”

  The girl wiped her eyes with the hand holding the gun. “Why else? He figured if he could get enough money, we could go to New York or somewhere until after the baby’s born.”

  “Why didn’t Eddie tell Judge Arnst that?”

  Jenny cried harder. “Because my father will kill me when he finds out. He’ll call me a dirty name. And I’m not. Because I love Eddie and we figured we’d get married as soon as he finished high school.”

  Lathrop walked over to where she was standing, slumped against the doorjamb. “Please. Don’t cry like that. I’m afraid Eddie’s going to have to do some time, but maybe we can figure out something. But first, tell me this: Why did you come here with a gun?”

  “Because I need some money,” the girl sobbed. “And I thought you might have some.”

  Lathrop took the gun from her fingers. “I have. A little. But you don’t need a gun to get it. I’ll be glad to do what I can. I meant what I said before. I like Eddie.”

  The girl continued to cry. “Eddie said you were a good guy. That’s why he tried to use you as an alibi.�
��

  Lathrop looked at the revolver. “Is this the gun Eddie used?”

  Jenny bobbed her head. “But it isn’t even loaded. And it wasn’t loaded when he went in that drugstore. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. All he wanted was money.”

  “Judge Arnst should know that,” Lathrop said. “Eddie should have told him the whole thing instead of acting and talking like a hooligan.” He led the sobbing girl into the kitchen and guided her to a chair. “I tell you what. Let’s talk this out over a cup of coffee.” He put water on the stove to heat. He’d built a good fire in the boiler. The radiators were beginning to pound and the chill was leaving the room. “And while we’re on the subject of food, how long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

  Jenny shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No. I haven’t been home for two days. I’ve been afraid to go home.”

  Lathrop was grateful for a chance to think of someone besides himself for a few minutes. “Then let’s see what I can find.” He looked into the refrigerator. “How about some scrambled eggs?”

  “I’d like that,” Jenny said.

  Lathrop put a pan on the stove, and when the grease was heated he broke three eggs into the pan, added a little milk, and stirred the mixture vigorously. “How old are you, Jenny?”

  “Sixteen. Two months younger than Eddie.”

  “In other words, in two months you’ll be seventeen.”

  “That’s right. Why?”

  “I was just thinking that lots of girls get married when they’re seventeen. How long have you and Eddie been going together?”