“I’ll bet you would, at that.”
Maeve smiled. “Never doubt it, my friend,” she cooed sweetly.
Maeve and Stern sat in the car in front of the bar Maeve had chosen and watched Jackson’s long, lithe figure disappear down the street. Stern made no move to leave the car, and Maeve appraised him thoughtfully.
“You’re hatching something, Joey,” she accused. “I can tell by the tilt of your nose. You always wrinkle it like that when you think you’re putting something over—it’s a dead giveaway. Come on, tell Blackie. You wouldn’t be trying to ditch me, would you?”
“Huh?” said Stern. “Oh no, of course not. Nothing like that.” Maeve sniffed. “Not much, Mr. Injured Innocence. All right, then, what is it?”
“I was just thinking. This might be a good time to go calling.”
“Calling? On whom?”
“A couple of landladies.”
“I don’t like landladies,” said Maeve.
“These won’t be social calls.” Stern smiled at her. “I suppose I might as well let down my hair, seeing I can’t ditch you, you little mutt. You see, the thing that worries me most about this case is: there are too many alibis. With the exception of our lanky friend there who just turned the corner, all the suspects in good standing have very neat ones—too neat. So damn neat, they sound manufactured. Burke leaves the cop on the beat at twelve twenty-five, and fifteen minutes later he shows up at Edna’s. No time for a murder there. Three of the others are participating in a nice, quiet little crap game in a brightly lit parking lot with a dozen assorted witnesses. One makes sure his landlady knows he’s home in bed, and the other has a bartender pal who swears he never took his eyes off him. All those alibis make me doggone suspicious, and I think this might be a good chance to go check up on a few of them.”
“Oh, that would be lovely,” said Maeve. “Where do we start?” Stern consulted the back of an old envelope. “We’ll go take a look at brother Melius’ boardinghouse first,” he decided. He gave her the address.
Maeve swung the wheel expertly and shot the little car away from the curb. A truck driver in front of whom she had cut into the traffic stream cursed her earnestly, but she paid no attention.
“Which one is Melius?” she asked. “I always have trouble keeping my suspects straight.”
“Keep the car straight,” said Stern in alarm as she swung from one traffic lane to another. “You’re not driving a tank.”
Maeve giggled and missed the tailboard of a truck by inches. “You sound just like Nunky, but I love you for it. Come on, Joey darling, tell me about Melius.”
Stern shuddered and closed his eyes. “Melius is the president of the union,” he told her. “He’s fat and full of dignity—injured dignity, last time I saw him. I gathered the impression that he was not entirely frank when Nicholson questioned him last night.”
“Is he the one whose pal’s a bartender?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then why don’t we go see the bartender?”
Stern opened his eyes, took a quick look at the swirling traffic, and closed them again. He would have suggested driving himself but he knew that any word from him would only spur the rash young woman to further excesses. He resigned himself and continued the conversation.
“Maybe we will later. Not that I think it’ll do much good. The bartender will probably swear he never took his eyes off our fat friend. He’ll swear double if the alibi’s a phony. That’s why the phony alibis are usually the hardest ones to crack. Right now I’m more interested in finding out if brother Melius has another alibi for this morning around ten o’clock.”
“Oh,” said Maeve. “That’s when the other man was killed, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.” Stern opened his eyes and sat up as the car drew into the curb. “You wait here,” he said. “I’ll be right out.”
“That’s what you think,” said Maeve. She caught his sleeve and held it in a firm grip as she followed him out of the car. “I’m right behind you, mister.”
Stern grinned down at her. “You’re not going to miss anything, are you?”
“Not if I can help it,” asserted Maeve firmly.
The proprietress of the barracks-like boardinghouse in which Melius roomed was as clean and neat and institutional as her establishment. She was also as impersonal. She examined Stern’s credentials, accepted Maeve without question, and told her story in a terse, detached manner that was eloquent of her respect for the police and the rooming-house code and her determination to keep her own skirts and those of her place of business free from contamination. Her story was simple and convincing. She did not know what time Melius had come in the night before but she did know that he had not left his room before eight-thirty that morning when he passed her on the stairs. Melius did not take his meals in the boardinghouse, and the woman assumed that he was on his way to breakfast. He usually ate at the diner on the corner. They might ask there, although the police had already done so. The police had also examined Mr. Melius’ room. As long as her boarders behaved themselves on the premises she did not bother her head with what they did off it. Yes, Mr. Melius drank occasionally, but he was always quiet and he did not impress her as being the murdering type. But then, she was no judge.
There was a good deal more of this, none of it very profitable, and Stern beat an orderly retreat. He made a quick stop at the diner on the corner and learned from the waitress who had served Melius his breakfast that he had had four fried eggs, French fries, and two cups of coffee and had left at approximately ten minutes to nine. That wasn’t an airtight alibi, but it was a close squeeze. Melius could have gotten to Murdock’s in time to commit the second murder, but he wouldn’t have had time to stop and pick flowers on the way. In a way, it was better than an airtight alibi, because two airtight alibis in a row might be suspicious whereas Melius, by following what appeared to be his regular routine, had given a convincing appearance of innocence. The gist of it all was that you had to give the fat man credit for more subtlety than you thought he had or wipe him off the list of suspects at least as far as the second murder went. Stern compromised by pigeonholing the problem for further reference and going on to examine the next suspect.
They found Painter having a comfortable cup of coffee with his landlady in her kitchen.
“Sure,” said Painter, his eyes straying appreciatively to where Blackie sat with crossed knees, pretending to take notes of the conversation, “I don’t mind going over the story I told last night. Mrs. Hefflin here will tell you I came in a couple of minutes after twelve o’clock. From what the papers say about the time poor old Pop got his, I guess that lets me out, don’t it?”
“How about this morning?” asked Stern.
“You mean Murdock,” said Painter. “Suppose I couldn’t account for every minute of my time; that wouldn’t mean I killed anybody, would it?”
“Of course not,” agreed Stern, “but if you could it would help a lot. The more people we eliminate, the more we narrow the field. That’s the way criminals are usually caught—not by dropped handkerchiefs and fingerprints.”
“I get you,” said Painter. “Well, you can eliminate me right now. I shaped up this morning and went to work on Pier 44 at seven-thirty. I just got home a couple of hours ago. You can check that with the boss stevedore.”
Stern studied Painter for a moment. “What do you think of Jackson as a suspect?” he asked suddenly.
Painter looked down his long nose. “You’ll have to ask him.”
“Do you think he was framed?”
“It’s been done before,” said Painter.
“You and Jackson were on opposite sides of the fence in the committee meeting, weren’t you?”
Painter frowned. “What are you trying to do, mister—get my goat? Sure, we were on opposite sides of the fence. The majority of the committee, including me, wanted to recommend strike, and Jackson wanted to wait. Jackson got kind of nasty about it. Hell, that sort of thing is always happening in
committee meetings. It don’t mean nothing. I’ll tell you one thing, though, free and gratis, and you can make whatever you damned please out of it. I don’t like Jackson and I don’t trust him and I guess he feels the same way about me. Neither one of us would be a hell of a lot surprised if the other one turned out to be a rat.”
“That’s funny,” said Stern. “I happen to know that Jackson doesn’t suspect you. He’s got another candidate.”
“You don’t say.” Painter looked mildly surprised. “Who?” Stern grinned. “You’ll have to ask him,” he said.
“What makes you think I know?” Stern hedged.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” said Maeve promptly. “I don’t. But you’re getting warm, and I’m not going to stand for any holdouts. Come on, tell me whom you suspect and why.”
Stern looked around. They were alone at the bar, and the attendant was busily polishing glasses at the far end. “All right,” he said. “Maybe, what my so-called mind needs is some exercise. I haven’t any particular suspect, Blackie, and that’s the truth. What I’ve seen so far seems to point to one of the members of the Union Negotiating Committee, but there’s practically no real evidence to go on, and, if there’s something at the bottom of the whole business that we haven’t uncovered yet—some other motive beside the stool-pigeon angle, for instance—it could be anybody. The thing that bothers me most right now are these alibis. Take that fellow Painter, for instance. He’s smart and shrewd and out to feather his own nest at the union’s expense if necessary, I’ll bet a dollar. He’s got a good record in the union and he’s not exactly the type that’s usually picked for labor espionage, but other factors could outweigh those objections. What sticks when you start to consider him is that alibi—or rather those alibis, since he just gave us another for the Murdock murder.”
“Maybe his landlady is lying,” said Maeve. “From her looks I wouldn’t put it past her.”
Stern shook his head. “No,” he said. “She isn’t lying. She’s like Painter—hard as nails. She wouldn’t take a chance on a murder rap unless Painter had some way of forcing her and she’s not scared, so that’s out. No, there’s no doubt, the lady’s telling the truth or what she thinks is the truth.”
“Well, then, that’s that, isn’t it?” asked Maeve a little impatiently.
“Uh-huh.” Stern sighed. Psychologically he considered Painter the perfect suspect, and, despite the weight of evidence, he could not bring himself to eliminate the man completely from consideration. “Of course we’ll check his alibi for the second murder,” he said. “But it’s a ten-to-one shot that it’ll be foolproof. That’s not surprising with a man like Painter. He knows he’s a police suspect in the Riorden murder and he’d watch his step.
“Now Melius, on the other hand, isn’t smart, and he hadn’t got one tenth of Painter’s guts. If he committed these murders he did them in a blue funk and he doesn’t seem that scared to me. Still, I’ve been fooled before...
Maeve nodded, and he looked at her over the top of his glasses. “You don’t have to be so all-fired vehement about it,” he remonstrated plaintively. “I’m admitting it, am I not?”
“Yes,” Maeve agreed, “you’re admitting it. Go ahead about Melius.”
“Well”—Stern’s tone was a little hurt as he continued—“you understand this is just thinking out loud. Melius has gotten fat holding a responsible position in the union, and he’s no more honest or altruistic than Painter but, aside from his lack of guts, he’s got an alibi too. Even a man as big as Melius can’t be in two places at once, and the bartender swears he was in the White Horse Saloon at the time of Riorden’s murder.”
He picked up his cocktail glass and studied for a moment. “Burke’s number three on the list,” he said, “and I hope we get something definite on him one way or the other before the night’s over. Then there’s Jackson’s pal, Whitey Gordon——”
“He’s Jackson’s suspect,” said Maeve. “I remember Jackson telling Nunky it was his pal.”
“I know.” Stern nodded. “I tried to draw Jackson out in the open to find out why he suspected Gordon. He wouldn’t suspect him without good reason and he probably knows a couple of things we don’t. Gordon would be my favorite suspect, too, except—well, doggone it, he’s a little cocky guy, and I like him. I can’t for the life of me picture him being a rat.”
“That’s a nice objective attitude for a detective—especially when he’s a lawyer into the bargain,” said Maeve. “I don’t see how you ever expect to get ahead.”
Stern grinned momentarily. “That’s what the boss says,” he admitted. “I once made a mistake like that on a guy we had dead to rights, and he almost got away. He got religion and confessed on his way to the chair and nearly got me fired. That’s what I call ungrateful. I thought I’d learned my lesson until this Gordon fellow came along.” He turned a mock-mournful face on Maeve. “I guess I’m just not made of the right stuff.”
Maeve reached over and put her small black-gloved hand on his. “Never you mind, Joey,” she said. “I like the stuff you’re made of.”
“Thanks,” said Joey. “That’ll be something to remember when I’m unemployed. Seriously though, Gordon’s the most likely suspect of the lot in some ways. He’s a union business agent, and that’s the one job, outside of membership chairman, a rat would want to get elected to and he probably had a better chance to rig a frame on Jackson than any of the others. He was less than a block away when Riorden was killed and he had opportunity in the Murdock case. Even his personality is against him if you look at it objectively. He’s a hail-fellow-well-met sort of cuss, and that’s just the sort of guy that makes the best kind of stool pigeon. The men are much more likely to suspect a sour puss like Painter than a man like Gordon. I guess I’ll have to get tough and keep my eye on him.”
“It’d be awful if Jackson was really right,” said Maeve. “After they’ve been such friends.”
Stern made a wry face. “It’d be awful for Gordon,” he said. “That would be one murder there wouldn’t be any doubt about.” Maeve started checking on her fingers. “Painter, Melius, Burke, and Gordon—that’s four,” she said. “What about the other men on the committee?”
“Well, one’s a Negro named Sangster. He’s as big as a house and plays professional football in his spare time.”
“It wouldn’t be he,” said Maeve. “They wouldn’t pick a Negro as a spy.”
“That shows how much you know. This union is nearly fifty per cent colored, and there’d be more chance to get something on a Negro that’d keep him in line. He’d know they could frame him any time they felt like it. Besides, even this longshore union isn’t free of race prejudice, and the Negroes feel it and resent it. It could be a Negro, as well as a white man.”
He drained the last of his cocktail and ordered another round. “I don’t think it’s this particular Negro though,” he continued when the bartender had left them. “He didn’t dumb up for the cops as a Negro usually does—he just stayed quiet and watchful and answered questions without really saying anything. Of course he was scared—any Negro is when he runs foul of the law, but I felt, somehow, that he was burning up inside at the same time. I’d stake a lot, he’s a good union man.”
“Check,” said Maeve. “Who else?”
“There’s a little Italian, Colletti, who doesn’t speak much English unless he’s dumbing up plenty. He’s an outside possibility. The men seem to trust him.”
“They’d trust a stool pigeon,” said Maeve. “He’d have to have their confidence to do his dirty work.”
“You make it too simple,” Stern said, “but never mind, you’ll learn.”
“I think Melius is the murderer,” said Maeve with conviction. “People always think fat men are nice and easygoing. All the fat men I ever knew were rascals.”
Stern laughed and patted her hand. “It must be nice to be a woman,” he said. “The only trouble is that Melius has been a union official for twenty years, and even when the We
ller mob was ‘in’ and everybody was crooked he wasn’t caught out of line once. Besides, there’s his alibi.”
“Maybe he and the bartender belong to the same lodge,” said Maeve. “Anyway, I don’t care what you say, he’s my suspect number one.”
“Have it your way,” said Stern, finishing his drink. “I’ll admit he’s on my suspect list, but he’s not first.”
“Who is?”
“What do you care? You’ve got Melius.”
“You think it’s Burke, don’t you?”
“Not necessarily,” Stern evaded. “He’s sure as hell mixed up in it, but so far I don’t know how.”
“Do you think we’ll find him?”
“How would I know? Maybe it’s a wild-goose chase.”
Maeve was silent for a moment. Then she looked up out of the corner of her eye. “Joey, you don’t think I’m just a thrill seeker, do you?”
“Oh, for Godsake. Be your age, will you?” He looked at his watch. “Jackson ought to be along pretty soon.”
“How about another daiquiri?”
“Not for you, little girl,” said Stern. “You’ve had enough.”
6. Man Hunt
When Jackson, bathed, shaved, and dressed in what he called his “shore clothes”—neat, well-fitting blue suit, blue topcoat, and gray snap-brim hat—walked in they were still spatting like two kids about whether or not Maeve could have another drink.
Three hours later Jackson led the way into the Club Caravan, just around the corner from the theater district. The interim between Maeve’s modernistic bar and the Club Caravan had been filled with an assortment of night clubs, cocktail lounges, and dives, some of which Maeve had been to before, or had heard of—“You have been listening to Blah Blah and his Collegians playing to you from the Club Blah”—and some of which she had never known existed. She was having the time of her life and learning things about a big city’s underworld—not the sordid back-alley underworld of her imagination, but a sort of fourth-dimensional underworld that existed in familiar places and rubbed shoulders with familiar commonplace people, unseen and unsuspected except by its initiates.
Death on the Waterfront Page 17