A Right to Die

Chapter 15

As I approached I saw through the one-way glass that Saul had a hold on her right arm, so as I opened the door I was prepared to take her left one if necessary, but she crossed the sill without any help. Saul said, “Orrie’s in the car with Mrs. Brooke. Do you want her?” I said no, Orrie had better see her home, and he went to tell him. I mentioned somewhere that I don’t mind helping a murderer with a coat, but Maud Jordan shook her head when I offered. She was keeping it on. Thinking that Saul should have the honor of escorting her to the office, I waited until he came back in and then followed them. Saul moved up one of the yellow chairs for her and started for one for himself, but Wolfe told him to take the red leather. Before he did so he took an object from his pocket and put it on Wolfe’s desk, and Wolfe made a face at it and told me to take it. It was a snub-nosed Haskell .32, and I took a look to see if it was loaded. It was, and I dropped it in a drawer. Saul said, “It was in her coat pocket,” and sat.

She hadn’t opened her mouth. She did now, and spoke to the point. “I haven’t got a permit for that gun,” she said. “That’s against the law, having a gun without a permit, but it doesn’t justify this kind of treatment.” Her eyes darted to Saul and back to Wolfe. “I was getting into a car at the invitation of the woman driving it, and that man assaulted me.”

Wolfe ignored her and asked Saul, “Should you report?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think it’s necessary, unless you want the details, where and when. We closed in when she opened the car door and was getting in, and I put her in the back seat with me, and Orrie got in front with Mrs. Brooke. That’s all there was to it. There was no commotion. Mrs. Brooke made a little noise, but we calmed her down. Orrie’s good at that. It was in Central Park. Do you want details?”

“Not now. Probably never.” Wolfe turned. “This need not be prolonged, Mrs. Ault. Since it can easily be—”

“My name is Maud Jordan.”

“So it is. There’s nothing immutable about a name. A man’s name is whatever he chooses to call himself. If you resent being addressed by your former name, Marjorie Ault, I’ll refer to it—”

“My name has always been Maud Jordan.”

“That won’t do. There’s a man at the Churchill Hotel, my guest, who arrived about an hour ago. Lieutenant Sievers, George Sievers, of the Evansville police. If he isn’t immediately available he will be shortly. Shall we postpone the conversation until Mr. Goodwin brings him?”

I have seen a lot of faces do a lot of things, but what hers did in twenty seconds, maybe a little more, was amazing. When she heard the name, Sievers, her eyes shut, tight, and I swear I could see the color go from her skin, though I wouldn’t have said, before, that it had any color. I don’t often get fancy, but it was exactly as if what I saw going was not color, but life. It wasn’t like just turning pale; it was quite different. I didn’t enjoy it. I looked at Saul and saw that he was seeing it too, and he wasn’t enjoying it either.

In another half a minute her eyes opened, at Wolfe, but I had her in profile and couldn’t see if they had changed too. “George Sievers was in my class at school,” she said.

Apparently she thought that called for comment. Wolfe grunted.

“Anyway,” she said, “I can talk. You don’t know how hard it’s been. The niggers. Sometimes I thought I would choke, with Mr. Henchy and Mr. Ewing and Mister Mister Mister. But I did it, I killed her. She had a right to die, and I killed her.”

“I advise you, Miss Jordan, not to—”

“My name is Marjorie Ault!”

“As you will. I advise you not to speak until you are more composed.”

“I haven’t been as composed for years as I am now. Since the day my Richard died. I’m glad you found out about me because now I can talk. I thought you would. Do you know when I thought you would?”

“No.”

“The day I was here with the niggers, the first time, when you asked so much about the phone call, about it being Susan’s voice. I thought you knew then that she hadn’t made the call, that nobody had, that there hadn’t been any phone call. Didn’t you?”

“No. If I had...” Wolfe let it go. No use trying to explain when she wanted only to talk, not listen.

She talked. “I knew someday I would be telling about it, but I didn’t know it would be you. I want you to know, I want everybody to know, that I didn’t decide to kill her just on account of my Richard. All I decided was that I wanted to see her, to know about her. That’s why I sold the business and— You know I had a good business?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why I sold it and got it all in cash and came to New York and changed my name. But after I got here I saw it wouldn’t be so easy because I didn’t want to be friends with her. Then when she started working for that ROCC, that was my chance. I had plenty of money, and I made a big contribution and offered to work for them. That was hard, I want you to understand that, and I want you to understand that up till then I didn’t intend to kill her. I didn’t have any idea of killing her. I didn’t even want to hurt her; I just wanted to know her. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Do you understand how hard it was, there with them?”

“Yes.”

“I want to be sure you do. I had had some niggers working in my factory, sweeping floors, that kind. I’ll see if you understand. Why did I decide to kill her?”

“That’s obvious. Because she was going to marry a Negro.”

She nodded. “You do. My Richard wasn’t good enough for her, she and her mother had driven my Richard out of their house, to kill himself there on their porch, and she was going to marry a nigger. It came to me in a funny way. She was always talking about civil rights, all she cared about was civil rights, and now she was going to marry a nigger. Then she had a right, she had a right to die, so I decided to kill her. Won’t everybody understand that?”

“Certainly. Especially Negroes. It may be more difficult to understand why you killed Peter Vaughn. Did he recognize you when he came there Wednesday morning?”

“He thought he did but wasn’t sure. He had seen me twice, years ago, when I went to see my Richard at college. They were classmates. On his way out he asked me some questions, and my answers didn’t satisfy him, and I arranged to meet him that evening.”

“To kill him.”

She frowned. “I don’t think so.”

“You took the gun along.”

She passed her tongue over her lips. “I’m not going to talk about that.”

“And you had it again this evening, for Mrs. Brooke. The same gun?”

“Of course. It was my husband’s. He always carried it when he brought money from the bank for the payroll. I don’t want to talk about that, I want to talk about Susan. She called me Maud, you know, and I called her Susan. Of course my Richard had called her Susan, he told me all about her, but I had never met her. I have two pictures of her that he had, one with him. I’m not sure you understand how I felt about her. I’m not saying I loved her because my Richard had, that wasn’t it exactly, but I wanted to be close to her, I wanted to see her every day. Do you understand that?”

“I think I do. It’s somewhat involved.” Wolfe’s eyes moved. “The kitchen extension, Archie.”

I pressed a button and got up and went. As I passed Saul he winked. I’m going to talk him out of that some day. In the kitchen I sat at my breakfast table, pulled the phone over, and dialed. Cramer doesn’t like to be called at his home number, but if I had rung Homicide South I would probably have got Rowcliff, and I didn’t want to take the time and trouble to get him stuttering. After four buzzes a female voice I knew said hello, and I said, “This is Archie Goodwin, Mrs. Cramer. May I speak to the inspector, please?”

She said she’d see, and in a minute there was a growl in my ear, “What do you want, Goodwin?”

“I’m in the kitchen. Mr. Wolfe needs help. The woman who killed Susan Brooke and Peter Vaughn is in the office with him, talking a blue streak, and won’t stop. She has explained why she killed Susan, and now she’s explaining—”

“Damn you, are you clowning?”

“I am not. I’m sick and tired of being accused of clowning by cops. This morning in Evansville, Indiana, a police lieutenant did, and I brought him—”

“Who’s the woman with Wolfe?”

“I’d rather not mention names on the phone. Another thing, the gun she shot Vaughn with is in my desk drawer and I haven’t got a permit for it. I don’t like—”

“Is this straight, Goodwin?”

“You know damn well it is. As Dolly Brooke would say, are I crazy? Would I—”

The connection went. I went to a shelf for a glass and to the refrigerator for milk. It would probably be six or seven minutes before company came, and I had had enough of that face, even in profile.