Murder, She Uncovered

by Peg Cochran

  Her breath smelled of coffee and lox.

  Elizabeth already had her hand on her camera case. “Who is it?”

  “It’s the lady who lives next door to me. Mary Tyler.” She shook her head. “What a tragedy. I knew she wasn’t happy, but…”

  “You knew her?” Kaminsky said, edging closer to the woman and opening his notebook.

  The woman held out her hands, palms up. “Not well. But we passed the time in the hallway whenever we met. You know—this and that.”

  “How did you know she was unhappy?” Elizabeth said.

  “They were always fighting, weren’t they. She and that husband of hers.”

  “You could hear them?” Kaminsky said. “What did they fight about?”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. It’s not like I put a glass to the wall.” She gave Kaminsky a stern look and turned to Elizabeth. “But anyone would be unhappy, wouldn’t they, if they were always arguing with someone?”

  “Did you know her husband?” Elizabeth said.

  “No. I mean he was polite enough and always said hello and tipped his hat when we came across each other, but it wasn’t like we ever had a conversation. Just good morning and good evening, you know?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “Look at me,” the woman said. “Standing here talking, and I’ve got a cake in the oven.” She began to walk away.

  “I’m going to see if I can get some pictures,” Elizabeth said.

  She made her way through the crowd. The sheet-shrouded body looked terribly small and forlorn. A bit of blood trickled out from under the covering. A sudden breeze caught the edge of the sheet and lifted it slightly.

  The crowd groaned and Elizabeth felt bile rushing into her mouth. She took a deep breath and put her camera to her eye.

  “The press is here already,” one of the police officers said, jerking his thumb in her direction.

  “A bunch of vultures,” she heard a woman say. “No respect for the dead.”

  Elizabeth was momentarily rattled by the woman’s comment, but then Kaminsky came up behind her. “No respect for the dead?” he parroted. “Pay no attention to her. She’s a fine one to talk. She’s gawking like this was some vaudeville show put on for her amusement. She doesn’t want to miss a minute of it.”

  As usual, Kaminsky had managed to make her feel better. Elizabeth began taking pictures, slowly circling the pathetic heap on the sidewalk to get every angle. The sunlight filtering through the trees cast a playful dappled shadow on the sheet that was at odds with the gruesomeness of what lay hidden underneath.

  “Make way!” she heard one of the policeman shout.

  “Looks like the medical examiner is here,” Kaminsky said.

  “At least we already know cause of death,” one of the officers said and the others laughed.

  The medical examiner had no sooner arrived than an ambulance came down the street, lights flashing and siren blaring. Right behind it was another police car.

  Elizabeth felt her heart begin to thud in her chest as the door opened and Marino jumped out. He gave Elizabeth a big smile as he joined the officers and the medical examiner clustered around the body.

  He spoke to two of the officers who then broke away from the crowd and headed toward the door of the apartment building from which the woman must have jumped. They disappeared inside.

  “I wonder if she left a suicide note,” Kaminsky said. He stroked his chin. “Only one way to find out. Come on.”

  They made their way to the entrance of the apartment building. Kaminsky opened the door and they stepped into the tiny vestibule, which barely fit both of them. Kaminsky tried the inner door.

  “No luck. It’s locked.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Push all the buzzers.” He motioned to the panel on the wall, where each button was marked with an apartment number. He began pressing them one at a time and finally there was a loud buzz. He grabbed the door handle and pulled the door open.

  “We don’t know which apartment it is.”

  “My mistake. I should have asked that lady when I had the chance. We’ll have to stop on each floor until we find it.”

  They found the stairs and began trudging up to the second floor. Kaminsky opened the door and the smell of cabbage and onions cooking wafted toward them. He looked up and down the hallway.

  “Not here.”

  They were approaching the sixth floor and Kaminsky was out of breath while Elizabeth’s leg was becoming weaker and weaker. She took heart from the fact that they’d reached the top floor of the apartment building.

  Kaminsky held the door open. “Here we go.”

  The building was small and there were only five doors off the hallway. The smell of food cooking lingered in the air, but the carpet was clean and the wallpaper, with its climbing roses, was cheerful.

  One of the doors was open, and they heard voices coming from within the apartment. They headed down the hall. A broad back in a blue uniform blocked the doorway. The officer must have sensed Elizabeth’s and Kaminsky’s presence because he suddenly turned around.

  He was young—younger than she was, Elizabeth thought—with pale lashes and a smattering of freckles that made her think of Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn.

  Kaminsky waved his press card in the officer’s face. “Daily Trumpet,” he said.

  “I’m afraid we can’t let anyone in.”

  Kaminsky peered around the officer into the living room. The window was open and a white lace curtain fluttered in the breeze. It was a small room but nicely outfitted with furniture that was obviously well cared for—the wood end tables polished until they shone and the pillows on the sofa nicely plumped.

  A piece of paper, folded in half and held down with a crystal lighter sat on the coffee table.

  “Is that a suicide note?” Kaminsky pointed at it.

  The cop shrugged. “Could be. But no one’s touching nothing until Detective Marino gets here.”

  Kaminsky turned to Elizabeth. “Can you get a picture?”

  Elizabeth pulled out her camera and approached the coffee table.

  “Say, I don’t know if you should be doing that,” the cop said.

  “Just a couple of photographs,” Kaminsky reassured him, motioning for Elizabeth to go ahead.

  The cop frowned. “Hey lady, be sure you don’t touch nothing, okay?” he said as Elizabeth edged closer to the coffee table.

  She nodded and took several pictures. Then she swung her camera around and got a few photographs of the kitchen, where a pot sat out on the stove. The police must have turned the gas off because the scent of some sort of stew cooking lingered in the air. Finally she returned her camera to its case.

  “Let’s see if Marino has anything to say,” Kaminsky said.

  Marino was deep in conversation with the medical examiner when they got downstairs.

  The crowd had begun to disperse—the excitement was over—and only the occasional passerby stopped to look at the body on the sidewalk.

  Marino ended his conversation and walked toward Elizabeth and Kaminsky.

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you much,” he said. “Beyond the obvious. It looks like the woman jumped from the sixth-floor window.” He gestured to the building behind him. “Most likely a suicide, but we won’t know for sure until we get some more information.”

  He smiled at Elizabeth, and she felt her breath catch in her throat.

  Suddenly they heard footsteps pounding down the sidewalk and headed their way. They turned to see a man running toward them, his raincoat flapping open, his hand on his hat to keep it from toppling off.

  Marino darted toward him, a hand held up to stop him.

  “What’s happened?” The man was breathless when he reached Marino.

  “I’m so
rry, sir, but I’ll have to ask you to stand back.”

  The man gestured toward the apartment building. “I live here. My wife is home alone. I need to make sure she’s okay.”

  Elizabeth and Kaminsky edged closer so they could hear the conversation more clearly.

  “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Gordon Tyler. I live in apartment six B.”

  “I’m sorry, sir—” Marino began before the man pushed past him and past the police guarding the body and knelt beside it on the sidewalk. He lifted the sheet and let out an anguished scream.

  Kaminsky turned to Elizabeth. “I bet that’s the husband.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I don’t think we’ll get much out of him at the moment. We can always come back. But we’ve got something at least. I didn’t see any other press here. And we have pictures.”

  He glanced behind him where two men were approaching the body with a stretcher. “It looks like they’re about to move the body, so it will be too late for any of the other papers to get photos even if they manage to run the story.”

  They began to walk toward the end of the block. The slightly gamy smell of raw meat drifted out the open door of the shop on the corner. A man in a white butcher’s apron, splotched with blood, stood in the doorway.

  “What a shame,” he said, gesturing at the group of police still clustered on the sidewalk halfway down the block.

  Kaminsky stopped. “Sure is.” He pulled his pack of Camels from his pocket and held it toward the man.

  “Thanks,” the butcher said, holding the cigarette between stubby fingers and leaning toward the lit match Kaminsky held out.

  “You didn’t happen to see it, did you?” Kaminsky squinted against the wreath of smoke that surrounded his head.

  “I heard her scream,” the butcher said. He shook his head. “I’ll never forget it. I was shocked when I saw who it was. Frankly, I wish I hadn’t. My hands were shaking so bad I could barely dial the number for the police.” He wiped his brow as if simply thinking about it had made him sweat. “I thought the police would never get here.”

  “You knew her?” Kaminsky’s nose practically twitched with excitement.

  “She came into the shop all the time. Figures since we’re only down the block. She bought a chuck roast just this morning. Said she was going to make a nice pot roast for her husband’s dinner.” He frowned. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

  “Why do you say that?” Kaminsky said.

  “Between you and me, I think he has a gal on the side. He came in with her one day while the missus was away—she said she was going to see her mother in Poughkeepsie—and bought a couple of lamb chops.”

  “Maybe it was his sister,” Kaminsky said, drawing the last puff from his cigarette before dropping the butt on the ground and grinding it out.

  “Not the way he was acting—putting his arm around her, whispering in her ear.”

  “Do you think that’s why the wife committed suicide?” Kaminsky said.

  The butcher shrugged. “Could be.”

  Chapter 10

  Kaminsky knew the location of every bar in New York City, Elizabeth thought as they watched the waiter walk toward them with Kaminsky’s shot of Old Schenley and a Budweiser chaser. Of course nearly every block had its neighborhood bar—they had sprung up like weeds when prohibition ended in 1933.

  “Do you really think that woman committed suicide?” Elizabeth said.

  Kaminsky threw back the shot of whiskey, coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Why? Are you thinking something different?”

  Elizabeth toyed with the straw in her Coca-Cola.

  “What woman goes to all the trouble of buying an expensive chuck roast for her husband’s dinner and then changes her mind and decides to jump out the window?”

  “You’ve got a point there,” Kaminsky said, wiping away the foam on his upper lip. “But if someone pushed her, where were they when the cops arrived?”

  “They would have had time to run downstairs and disappear around the corner before the alarm was sounded. The butcher said it took a while for the police to get there.”

  Elizabeth thought about the husband who had arrived late to the scene, breathless and flustered.

  “Maybe the husband did it. He pushed her out the window, ran down the stairs and away from the scene. Maybe he already had his raincoat on when he pushed her.”

  A look of admiration spread across Kaminsky’s face. “Good thinking, Biz.”

  Elizabeth felt a glow of satisfaction. Kaminsky was stingy with praise, but when he gave it, she knew he really meant it.

  “I wonder if the police found the door to the apartment unlocked?” Kaminsky raised his eyebrows.

  Elizabeth toyed with the wrapper from her straw, pleating it and folding it into an accordion shape.

  “If the husband had left for work as usual that morning, Mrs. Tyler would have locked the door behind him.”

  Kaminsky nodded in agreement.

  “But if the husband killed her, he wouldn’t want to take the time to lock up in back of him. So he dashes out leaving the door unlocked.”

  “That’s great thinking, Biz.” Kaminsky pulled his notebook from his pocket and began scribbling. “This story is going to be a lifesaver.”

  Elizabeth swirled her straw around in her glass watching the bubbles rise to the surface and pop.

  “Why do you say that?”

  Kaminsky sighed and ducked his head. “There’s a rumor going around the paper that they’re going to pink-slip a couple of reporters.”

  “You’re their best crime reporter. They wouldn’t do that to you.”

  Kaminsky ran his thumb down the condensation on his glass.

  “I don’t know. These young bucks have so much energy. It’s hard for an old guy like me to keep up.”

  Elizabeth looked at Kaminsky’s downturned mouth and the droop of his shoulders, and she vowed to do something. They’d show the Daily Trumpet that Kaminsky shouldn’t be put out to pasture yet. They’d scoop every paper in town.

  All she had to do was figure out how. An idea began to form in her mind and she turned it over examining it from every angle.

  It just might work.

  * * *

  —

  Kaminsky dropped into his desk chair and began typing as soon as they got back to the newsroom. Elizabeth hung her hat and coat on the hook in the wall and dashed into the darkroom with her camera. She would have to hurry if they were going to make the evening edition with the story.

  Elizabeth swore to herself when she realized she’d left a thumbprint on one of the negatives. It was a good shot, too. She forced herself to slow down—she’d been in too much of a hurry and had been careless. Fortunately she had plenty of other photographs. Some of them were even quite good.

  She was caught off guard when she realized she wasn’t actually seeing what was in the pictures—a body lying on the sidewalk covered with a sheet and oozing blood—she was seeing a possible front page photograph with her credit line. Had she become jaded already?

  Tommy was outside the door to the darkroom when Elizabeth opened it.

  “Sorry, miss,” he said when they nearly collided. “Oh, Miss Adams, it’s you.”

  “Hello, Tommy. Please, call me Elizabeth.”

  “Okay, then.” He shuffled his feet and gave her a bashful grin.

  “I hope the police haven’t been around the boardinghouse again,” Elizabeth said.

  Tommy shook his head. “No they haven’t.” He looked hopeful. “Do you and Mr. Kaminsky have any idea what’s happening?”

  “I’m sorry, no. Only our own theories, I’m afraid.”

  “Sure. I understand.” He shook his head. “Everyone at the boardinghouse has been in a tizzy over this. We’ve never had t
he police there before. Mrs. Lis isn’t taking it well. She said she’s sorry she ever rented a room to Noeleen.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “It’s hardly poor Noeleen’s fault. I imagine it’s been hard for her cousin Orla as well.”

  “Miss Cullen? You wouldn’t know it. I don’t think they got along all that well. Miss Cullen seemed jealous of Noeleen—especially of that job she got with the Posts. Of course Miss Cullen was supposed to interview for that job herself. Worse luck, I guess.”

  Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Miss Cullen was meant to interview for the job at the Posts’?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  Tommy shrugged. “I don’t know. She got sick, I guess.”

  “Thanks,” Elizabeth said.

  Tommy scratched his head. “What for?”

  “You’ve given me an idea.”

  Elizabeth dashed over to Kaminsky’s desk. He’d unwrapped his daily sandwich of egg salad and onions on rye bread and was about to take a bite. He smoothed out the wax paper and put the sandwich down when he saw Elizabeth bearing down on him.

  “You look like your horse just won the fourth race at Belmont.”

  Elizabeth was nearly out of breath with excitement.

  “I talked to Tommy Schmidt and he told me that Orla was jealous of her cousin Noeleen.”

  “And?”

  “And Orla was supposed to interview for that job with the Posts, but she got sick.”

  Kaminsky raised his eyebrows.

  “Don’t you see?” Elizabeth began to pace in front of Kaminsky’s desk, her hands behind her back. “That gives Orla a reason to hate Noeleen. Or at least to resent her.” She turned to face Kaminsky.

  He leaned back in his chair and it groaned loudly. “So you’re thinking that gives Orla a reason to murder her cousin.”

  Elizabeth felt deflated. “When you put it like that…it does sound a bit melodramatic.”

  “Maybe.” Kaminsky picked up his sandwich. “Let me finish this, and we’ll go have another talk with Miss Cullen. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business, it’s that you never know.”