Dial Me for Murder

Chapter 1

FOR ME, THE NIGHTMARE BEGAN IN THE MORNING. It was 8:35 AM on Wednesday, October 5, 1955. I was sitting alone in the Daring Detective office-at my desk in the front of the large communal workroom-waiting for the vat of coffee I’d just made to finish brewing, and combing the pages of the Herald Tribune for fresh, hot-off-the-press murder reports. I hadn’t worked on a major story in over two months, and I was getting antsy.

Hey, don’t get me wrong. I certainly wasn’t hoping that somebody had been killed! Heaven forbid! I just wanted to make sure that if there had been a headline-making murder in the last twenty-four hours or so, I would be well versed on all the reported facts, and prepared to swing into action if Crockett or Pomeroy decided to give the story assignment to me.

The first four pages of the Tribune were, however, devoted to milestones other than murder. The Brooklyn Dodgers had just won their first World Series, four games to three over the New York Yankees, in a 2-0 shutout pitched by southpaw Johnny Podres. Roy Campanella scored in the fourth and Pee Wee Reese in the sixth. President Eisenhower was still in the hospital, recovering (slowly) from the massive heart attack he’d suffered in Denver last month, and the stock market was continuing to fluctuate (wildly) according to reports of his health.

The country was also still reeling over the tragic death of actor James Dean, who had crashed his beloved Porsche Spyder into a tree in California just five days ago. A lengthy article about this shocking event appeared on page 3 of the Tribune, complete with a rehashed accident report and numerous mournful statements by the young star’s grieving fans. (I didn’t read the article all the way through, I must admit. My friend Abby had been supplying more than enough tearful reminders of Dean’s sudden demise while staggering back and forth between her apartment and mine, extra-strong highball in hand, wailing about the “atomic loss” of her “fave new screen boy” and vowing to wear black for the rest of her life.)

Finding nothing homicidal-or even very interesting-on page 4, I turned my attention to page 5. Much to my horror, there it was-the new murder story I had been searching for. It was printed in a short, slim column under a big, bold headline: NUDE BODY OF SLAIN SECRETARY UNCOVERED IN CENTRAL PARK. No photo accompanied the article. I sucked in a chestful of air, let out an audible moan, lowered my nose to the newsprint, and read every appalling word.

A young, unmarried secretary named Virginia Pratt had been killed Monday night, and her bound and gagged nude body was found wrapped in a bedsheet and buried under a mound of leaves in Central Park yesterday afternoon. Cause of death: suffocation-determined by the fact that the victim’s nose and mouth were packed with turpentine-soaked wads of cotton and tightly sealed with adhesive tape. Police believed the young woman was murdered in an unknown location and then dumped in the park. Her blue satin cocktail dress, mink jacket, lacy underwear, diamond jewelry, high heels, purse, and identification were found wrapped in the bedsheet along with her body. Anyone with information about the crime should contact Detective Sergeant Casey O’Connor at the Midtown North Precinct.

Several alarms went off in my brain at once. And my head was jangling with questions. Since the victim was found nude, tied up, and gagged, I took for granted she had been raped. But if she had been, why had all her clothes been left with the body? And why had she been dolled up in a fancy cocktail dress on a Monday night? Monday was usually the quietest, least dressy night of the week. Had Virginia gone to a private party before she was murdered, I wondered, or had she been on her way to a formal function?

And what about the mink jacket and diamond jewelry? How many single young secretaries could afford such luxurious accessories? (I knew I couldn’t!) And why hadn’t the killer snatched those expensive items to sell or pawn? Was he so well off he didn’t need the extra cash?

Most puzzling of all was the fact that Virginia ’s purse and identification had been stashed in her bedsheet shroud with her asphyxiated body. What could have been the motive for this unusual act? Most killers, I knew, tried to hide the identity of their victims. They figured the longer it took the cops to identify the corpse, the colder their own trail would become. And they were right! So what was the deal with this murderer? Was he stealthy or stupid? Had he simply acted in haste, or did he want the police to identify Virginia immediately?

(You see how my mind works? Questions, questions, questions. I’m so curious, sometimes I can barely breathe. Give me a puzzle to solve, and I won’t sleep until the answer is clear… or at least a little less murky.)

I didn’t scan the rest of the Tribune for further murder reports. Why bother? I was already hooked on the Virginia Pratt homicide and determined to grab that story assignment for myself. Dying to cut out the article for my personal story file, I grabbed a pair of scissors from my drawer. But then I came to my senses and put them away. Mr. Crockett would be arriving at the office any minute now. He’d want to read the morning news while he was having his coffee, and he’d blow his top if I didn’t bring him the papers while they were still intact (i.e., before I’d performed my daily duty of clipping out all the crime reports). I reluctantly slapped the paper closed, shoved it to one side of my desk, and started flipping through the Daily Mirror, looking for another article about the Pratt murder.

I found it immediately, up front on page 2. Either the Mirror editors placed more importance on the brutal murder of a young secretary than they did on the accidental death of James Dean, or they were more eager to appeal to their readers’ prurient interests. Judging from the headline of their piece-BLONDE BOMBSHELL FOUND NAKED, BOUND, AND DEAD UNDER HEAP OF LEAVES-I suspected it was the latter.

The Mirror article dished out most of the same details that had appeared in the Tribune, along with several tantalizing additions. Virginia Pratt, the tabloid noted, had been a beautiful, well-built champagne blonde, an aspiring folksinger, a resident of Peter Cooper Village on the Lower East Side, and a secretary at the 23rd Street accounting offices of Gilbert, Mosher, Pechter & Slom.

I was committing these new facts to memory when the office entry bell jingled and Harvey Crockett walked in.

“Good morning, Mr. Crockett,” I said, cocking my head to one side and drawing my words out in a long, dry line. “How’s tricks?” If I had to be subservient and submissive (as all female office workers are-at all times-required to be), I could at least do it with a flip, droll Eve Arden attitude.

“Hummph!” Mr. Crockett replied, squinching his bushy white brows and trudging over to the coat tree. He hung up his hat and coat, then headed down the center aisle of the main workroom toward his private office in the back. As he passed my desk he gave me a quick nod and a snort. “Coffee ready?”

“Yes, sir!” I croaked, resisting the urge to salute.

“Then bring me some,” he growled, maneuvering his wide body down the narrow aisle. “And the papers, too,” he said over his shoulder, as if I hadn’t heard those very same words every morning of every single day I’d worked at Daring Detective. Did he really think I wouldn’t remember? Or was he still refusing to admit to himself that a woman-any woman-might actually have a brain?

I rolled my eyes at the ceiling, rose to my full height (five feet seven without heels, five feet ten with), and sadly scooped up the newspapers. My search for more information about the Virginia Pratt murder would have to be put on hold. I knew better than to mention my interest in the story to Mr. Crockett. He would just tell Brandon Pomeroy about it, and then Pomeroy would make it a point to give the assignment to Mike Davidson- just for the pleasure of watching me squirm.

Doing my best Lauren Bacall (i.e., acting as cool and indifferent as possible), I carried all four morning editions into Crockett’s office and plunked them down on his desk. Then I went back into the workroom to fetch his coffee. (God forbid he should ever have to get his own!)

“Here you go, Mr. Crockett,” I said, returning to his office, walking around the front of his desk, and setting his coffee down next to his phone and ashtray-right where he liked it. The Daily News was open in front of him. (Having once been a staff reporter for the News, Crockett always read that paper first.) I leaned over the desk, tucked my shoulder-length brown hair behind my ears, stared down at the spread of newsprint, and madly scanned the upside-down headlines. Luckily, there was no story about the murder on either page, or I might have snatched the paper right out from under Mr. Crockett’s nose. (As hard as I try to contain myself, I can get a little carried away sometimes.)

“Will that be all, Mr. Crockett?” I asked, stalling, hovering, hoping he would turn the page so I could check out the next batch of headlines.

“Yeah,” he said, “except for lunch. Make a reservation for two at the Quill for twelve thirty. I gotta take the distributor out for a steak.” He didn’t look up from the News, but he didn’t turn the page, either.

“Yes, sir,” I said, giving up and walking back to my desk. Further stalling or snooping was pointless. I’d just have to keep my curiosity under control until Crockett finished the morning papers and gave them to me to clip-hopefully before Brandon Pomeroy came in.

As I sat down and reached for a galley to proofread, Lenny Zimmerman made his usual wheezing, gasping, red-faced entrance. (Lenny is deathly afraid of elevators and always climbs the full nine flights of stairs to the office.) Actually, he was more red-faced and wheezy than usual. Rivulets of sweat were trickling down his florid cheeks, and he was panting so hard his glasses were all steamed up.

Knowing it would take a full minute or two for my friend to recover from his arduous climb, I corrected all the typos in the first few paragraphs of the article I was reading. Then, as soon as Lenny’s breathing returned to normal, I grinned and gave him a hearty “Good morning.”

“Morning,” he mumbled, still standing just inside the door. He removed his black-rimmed glasses, wiped the lenses with his muffler, then returned the spectacles to their off-kilter perch on his large, distinctive nose. “God, Paige!” he said, aiming his bloodshot eyes at me. “It’s as hot as a steam bath in here. Do you have the radiator turned up too high?” His feet were firmly planted on the floor, but the rest of his thin body was swaying like a willow in the wind.

“Nope. I set the knob in its usual position. But you know what, Lenny? I think you’re turned up too high. Your face is still flaming. Do you feel all right?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” he said, slowly stumbling across the room and looping his hat, muffler, and jacket on the coat tree. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all.”

“Late night?”

“Hardly. My mother thought I looked sickly and made me go to bed at nine o’clock.”

I smiled. Lenny was twenty-three years old but still lived at home with his parents. He probably wouldn’t move out until the day of his wedding-if that day ever came. His mother was a tad possessive… and a really good cook.

“Hey, wait a minute!” I said, as Lenny walked up to my desk and turned to head for his drawing table in the rear. “Your mother was right. You do look kind of sickly. Stand still for a second.” I jumped to my feet and put my palm on his forehead. “Gosh, Lenny! You’re burning up. You should have gone to the hospital instead of coming to the office!” I was exaggerating, but not by much.

“You’re worse than my mother,” Lenny said. “She just wanted me to stay home.”

“You should have listened to her.”

“I couldn’t,” he said. “The cover paste-up and all the boards have to be finished and sent to the printer today. If I didn’t come in, Pomeroy would have me arrested and sent straight to the electric chair.”

“That would be funny if it weren’t true.”

“Tell me about it.” He looked so feverish I thought he might faint.

“What can I do for you, Len?” I asked. “Do you want a cup of coffee?”

“God, no. That would make me throw up.”

“A glass of water? Some aspirin?”

“Nothing, Paige. I just want to go sit down.”

Giving me a sad excuse for a smile, Lenny turned away and slunk down the aisle to the deepest recesses of the workroom. As he passed the open door to Mr. Crockett’s office, he muttered a quick hello, then sat down at his drawing table. Propping his elbows on the table and resting his head in his hands, he let out a moan that could have been heard in Hoboken. Poor Lenny. He was sick as a dog, with a major deadline looming-like the blade of a guillotine-over him. He knew he had a long, hard, harrowing day ahead.

I was in for a harrowing day myself, but-unlike Lenny-I didn’t know it yet.