Send Along a Wreath

Chapter III

There was a crowd in the hallway outside Estelle Moran’s apartment. O’Neill saw men from the coroner’s office, the city papers and Central station.

Inspector Logan was standing in the open doorway of the apartment talking to two reporters. He left them and walked to meet O’Neill.

“Glad you got here,” he said. “Let’s go inside where we can talk.”

He elbowed his way through the crowd, O’Neill following. They closed the door of Estelle Moran’s apartment and went into the living room. There was no one there but a self conscious looking detective, wearing a limp gray hat and staring thoughtfully at the floor.

“Where’s the girl?” O’Neill said.

“In the bed room,” Logan answered. “There’s a matron in there with her. She’s okay. Just pretty shocked.” He nodded to the detective and said, “wait outside, Jensen.”

The detective said, “Okay,” and went out.

“Now what do you know O’Neill?” Logan said. “I know you do a lot of work for the D.A. that nobody’s supposed to ask any questions about. But I got to know you know about this deal.”

He looked at O’Neill squarely and there was an uncompromising, stubborn set to his jaw.

“Relax,” O’Neill said. “I just asked him to come up here and keep an eye on Miss Moran while I was gone. That’s all there is to it.”

“Why did she need a house detective to look after her?” Logan asked.

“Because,” O’Neill said, “I wasn’t here.”

Logan took a deep, exasperated breath and said, “All right then. Why does she need you to look after her?”

“Let me talk to her first,” O’Neill said. “I’m giving you a square deal on this, Logan.”

“All right,” Logan said. “Go in and talk to her. She won’t tell us anything. Said she wouldn’t talk until you got here. So you can have a nice clubby reunion with her, but I’m going to sit in on it.”

“Come on, then,” O’Neill said. He glanced around the room, thinking of his last words with Spencer. “Where’s the body?” he asked.

“They took it downtown,” Logan said.

O’Neill nodded. He was thinking of nights he had spent in Spencer’s home, talking with his wife and his two teen-aged kids. And then drinking beer and looking at Spencer’s guns. Spencer had been just a normal guy. And now he was dead. The whole thing made him mad. And a little bit sick.

With Logan tagging at his heels he walked into the bedroom. Estelle Moran was lying on the bed, the pink coverlet pulled up to her chin. Her eyes were closed and the shadows under them were deep and purple. She looked small and tired.

There was a police matron standing beside the bed, a heavy solid woman in black flat-heeled shoes with a tired face.

“You can wait outside Miss Meyers,” Logan said.

The girl opened her eyes at the sound of his voice. She looked at O’Neill and began to cry.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, took her hand.

“You’ve got to talk now,” he said. “Take your time, but tell us everything.”

“I can’t talk about it,” she whispered.

“You’ve got to,” O’Neill said quietly. “Did you see who did it?”

She nodded wordlessly and looked away from him. He put a hand under her chin, pulled her head around until her eyes met his again.

“You’ve got to tell us everything you heard and saw,” he said. “It’s the only way we can help you. And find the guy who killed Spencer.”

She started to cry again, but she started talking, the words coming through the sobs, with a choked sound.

“It was about a half hour after you left. I heard someone talking outside the door. I recognized Spencer’s voice, but the other man was speaking so low I couldn’t be sure if the voice was familiar. I was too scared to open the door. Then Spencer’s voice got louder and he seemed angry. Then they seemed to be struggling and Spencer started to shout. I started for the phone but before I got there I heard a shot. I ran back to the door and I heard someone running. I opened the door and there was a man just turning the corner of the stairs. He looked back and saw me, but he didn’t stop, just disappeared around the corner.” Her eyes moved away from O’Neill’s. She had stopped crying but her breathing was uneven. “Mr. Spencer was lying just in front of the doorway. There was blood everywhere.”

“All right,” O’Neill said, “never mind that. What about this man? Did you recognize him?”

She turned her head away and said, “yes,” in a voice so low he had to lean forward to catch it.

“Who was it?”

“Eddie Shapiro,” she said.

O’Neill felt Logan shift his weight from one foot to the other.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I saw him,” she said. “I couldn’t be mistaken.”

Logan shifted his weight again. “That’s all I want to know, O’Neill. Sorry I acted edgy, but I don’t like things like this happening in my back yard.”

He went out and O’Neill heard him open the front door. He could hear his voice issuing fast orders. In five minutes O’Neill knew every cop in town would be looking for Eddie Shapiro.

“There’s something queer about this deal,” O’Neill said. He looked down at the girl and tried to think. But looking at her didn’t help his thinking. It just made him feel protective. “Shapiro isn’t dumb,” he went on, “this doesn’t sound like his work. He’s putting himself in a hell of a spot and getting nothing out of it. That isn’t the way he works.”

The girl turned her face away from him and closed her eyes.

“I can’t think,” she said. “All I can see is the house detective lying on the floor. He looked so pathetic there. Like he was just tired instead of being dead.”

“Forget that,” O’Neill said, looking at her sharply.

Logan came back into the room then, looking pleased.

“This thing is air-tight,” he said. “Shapiro was seen in the lobby tonight. A couple of the boys have been downstairs talking to the hotel people and they found two or three guys who remember seeing Shapiro come in. The identification is perfect. With those scars on his face you can’t miss him. We should have this case cleared by morning. Then maybe those reporters will lay off my neck. That’s as good a reason as any.”

He went out again, and O’Neill looked down at the girl. She was watching him with eyes that looked tense and frightened.

“Are you going?” she said.

“What made you think that?”

“You left before.”

O’Neill took out his cigarettes. “This time I’m staying. I may not be able to put you on the Chief tomorrow morning. But I’ll stick with you until they round up Shapiro. You’ll probably be held for the inquest, maybe the trial.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the girl said. Her voice sounded thin and lifeless. “When they get Shapiro I’ll feel all right.” She paused and looked at him, then looked away. “Do you want to stay here?”

O’Neill looked at her and decided he hadn’t better.

“I’ll be outside,” he said. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. Try and get some sleep.”

He walked across the room and tried the windows. They were both locked. He pulled the shades down and walked out. Leaving, he checked the windows in the front room just to be sure. There was no way anyone could get in those windows, but he tried them anyway. He went into the corridor, closed the door of her apartment and made sure it was locked.

There were a couple of cleaning women working on the floor. They had already gotten most of the brown stain out of the pale gray rug. The bucket of water in which they had rinsed their rags was a muddy shade of brown. About the shade of vinegar.

O’Neill looked at it without any expression on his face. But he was thinking that Spencer would have been a little apologetic about causing so much trouble for a couple of old women. That thought made him mad and sick all over again.

He took a dollar from his pocket and held it out to one of the women.

“It’s good enough,” he said. “When it dries you’ll never notice it.”

“The manager is awful particular,” the women said dubiously. She looked critically at the foot-square stain and then at the dollar bill. Her conscience struggled briefly with cupidity. Or just plain indifference. “I guess you’re right. It’ll be all right,” she said finally. She nudged the other woman and said, “Come on, let’s go. It’s all right.”

O’Neill watched them waddle down the corridor, looking like gray shapeless creatures from another world.

He lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall. His eyes were on the dark stain at his feet. He put out one foot absent-mindedly and pressed the damp spot, feeling it squish slightly under his shoe.

His thoughts were troubled. Sam wasn’t the hottest or toughest guy in the city, but he had been an experienced copper, and the way he was killed was the way it would happen to some green punk. O’Neill felt vaguely that he should apologize for Sam’s letting it happen to him, but he couldn’t imagine who he’d apologize to. He hadn’t been taken by surprise, he’d seen Shapiro coming, had even argued with him, and it didn’t seem right that he’d be stupid enough to let Shapiro get a gun out and shoot him. But that’s what had happened. And it wasn’t right.

He lit another cigarette and shoved his hat off his forehead. He wasn’t happy about putting in a night guarding the girl’s room but after what had happened he couldn’t take any more chances. He wished he’d never seen the girl. And he knew he was lying to himself when he thought that. He wanted to see more of her and he didn’t know why. Unless it was just because she set him on fire every time he looked at her.

Time passed slowly. He finished his pack of cigarettes, crumpled it and tossed in a sand-filled vase beside the door. His mouth felt stale and parched and he knew he was smoking too much, but his hands went mechanically through the pockets of his clothes, looking for a stray cigarette. He didn’t find any.

He looked at his watch. It was a quarter of twelve. The hotel was quiet, and the corridor looked so deserted that it was hard for him to imagine that it could look otherwise.

He looked at his watch steadily for a minute or so to make sure the hands were moving. They were. He yawned and pulled his hat down over his eyes.

His hand was still on the brim when the scream sounded.

It wasn’t a loud scream. It was a scream that sounded like a hand had cut it off before it could get loud.

And it came from the girl’s room.

O’Neill wheeled, grabbed the doorknob. The door was locked. He didn’t waste time knocking. He slammed his shoulder into the door twice. The second time the jam splintered.

O'Neill went into the room, half-crouched. There was no light in the apartment, no sound of any kind. He headed for the bedroom, moving quickly.

He felt a draft of cold air on his face at the door. And he saw vaguely the billowing shape of the curtains as the night wind whipped them.

The bedroom window had been opened. And there was just enough light in the room to let him see that the bed was empty.

He cursed and reached for the light switch, but before his hand found it, he heard, or rather sensed, a soft movement behind him.

That was his last conscious thought. There wasn’t time to do anything about it. He heard the movement behind him, and the next instant, so soon that the two seemed simultaneous, something hard and heavy crashed into the back of his skull.

He went down heavily, fighting hard to hang onto the shreds of dimming consciousness. But they slipped from his grasp and left nothing but an immense searing pain that finally dissolved into blackness.