Epitaph For A Dead Beat

CHAPTER 21

Someone had taped a newspaper photo of Marilyn Monroe behind the door of the interrogation room. One of her eyebrows was raised, and she was pouting, and she definitely had something in mind.

They’d taken my cuffs off, but for forty minutes she had been my only company. Now Toomey was straddling one of the rooms two desks, and a severely combed civil service stenographer in a shapeless brown suit had just taken a chair near the far wall. It was 2:26. Behind the other desk a mountainous Laird Cregar type in shirtsleeves was considering me impersonally. His name was Vasella and he was a detective lieutenant. He had a chest like a tombstone.

His tone was completely neutral. “You’re ready to make that statement now, I assume?”

I nodded.

I’ve spoken to Nate Brannigan,” he said, “and he’s given me the same endorsement of you he gave Sergeant DiMaggio three days ago. He might be getting tired of it, which is neither here nor there.” He sat down. “DiMaggio told me what went on uptown. He also told me that he’d been handling a separate homicide entirely before your call came in tonight and hadn’t seen bed for thirty hours. I don’t offer this as any sort of apology, but I don’t like to work in bad air.”

He did not wait for any comment on my part, turning to the stenographer. He gave her my name, my office address and my state license number, reading from a sheet he’d brought in, probably my statement about Josie Welch. “Nothing between your previous declaration and the time you were retained by this Ulysses Grant?” he asked me.

“Nothing.”

“We’ll start there, then. You’ve done this before.”

I nodded again, taking a Camel, and then told it. I was able to forget Constantine’s request for silence, since the telegram had taken me off the hook in that regard, although I did skip the matter of Margaret Constantine’s exotic automatic. The whole thing took less than twenty minutes.

Neither Vasella nor Toomey had interrupted. Vasella had taken out a thick yellow copy pencil, which he clicked against his front teeth. “Turk is the keystone, of course,” he said. “But I’d be more comfortable if Grant’s money were all there was to it.”

“Why Turk?” I said.

He looked toward Toomey, who was lounging against the doorjamb. “After that party quieted down over there,” Toomey told me, “this swish who lives in the place, McGruder — he told us that Turk was married to Audrey Grant.”

I frowned at him.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Toomey said. “But according to McGruder it happened about six months back. There was a crew of them, they got one of these automobile bugs and wound up in Maryland. Just for laughs the girl and Turk woke up some J.P. and got spliced. Then she laughed in his face when he tried to claim his rights as a husband. McGruder says there wasn’t much gossip about it because people felt sorry for Turk— evidently he’s that kind of fool. We’re checking it, but McGruder was sure the girl never did anything to cancel it out. The way these fruitcakes live down here—”

“You bring Turk in?” I asked him.

“Nah, that’s the trouble. I suppose you did as well as you could at the party — just reporting the kill and then locking that room, I mean. In fact it was probably best that way, since we were able to surprise the whole mob.” Toomey snorted. “Some screwball dame was standing on a chair in a bedsheet singing old labor songs, for Chrissake—’Join the Needle Workers’ Union.’ We got all the names and addresses, and we got statements from everybody who had anything to tell. But then, like I say, all of a sudden McGruder remembered this marriage bit — only Turk wasn’t there. His name wasn’t on the list, which means he’d ducked out before we showed up.”

Vasella was toying with the pencil. “Turk was the one you booked on the Welch killing Tuesday. I thought he had a corroborated alibi.”

“It has to be fishy under reconsideration, lieutenant,” Toomey said. “This guy Peters didn’t show up with his story until today — said he’d been on a bat. But here’s the thing. Half a dozen people mentioned the brawl he had with Fannin over there tonight, but Peters wasn’t on the list either. He must have scrammed the same time Turk did. DiMag put through an all-areas pick-up on the pair of them. We get Peters in here now, we’ll find out he was just covering for the other guy. Turk could buy an awful lot of alibi for a share in that thirteen million he’s due to inherit.”

“A man would have to be little short of moronic to kill three people for a legacy when everything would point to him,” Vasella said dubiously. “Or even to arrange for the killings. That knife — no one saw it after Fannin was hit?”

“It’s McGruder’s,” Toomey said. “He said he always kept it in the latrine. But after Fannin it doesn’t get mentioned.”

Vasella shook his head. “All right, let’s assume for the moment that Fannin’s basic interpretations are correct. Audrey Grant and Josephine Welch are half-sisters. If Audrey Grant is going to inherit Grant’s money and subsequently die herself, the Welch girl would have a strong claim on the estate. So she’s disposed of first. Then Grant, and then Audrey Grant — the order leaves Turk clear title. But damn it—” He made a wet sound between his lips. “Grant is sent those clippings the day he’s going to die. He contacts his lawyer about them and then he contacts a EI. — but even if he hadn’t done either of those things we’d still probably find the clips in his apartment. The man hadn’t seen his daughter in ten years, and it’s possible that no one would have connected the deaths — but this way we can’t fail to. Except why would anyone want the connection made? If we didn’t know the Grant girl had been worth all that money for the last four hours of her life we’d have no motive to hook Turk on. He could wait almost indefinitely to claim the legacy, or even claim it from somewhere he’d be nonextraditable — or try to.”

“There’s more than just Turk,” I said. “Both of those girls told Constantine they were coming into money.”

Vasella’s hand lifted to slap the desk. “Which would appear to indicate they themselves knew Grant was going to die—”

“Where does that take us, now?” Toomey said. “It’s as if the three of them were in it together — and then Turk crossed the two dames.”

“No one talks about money someone is going to be murdered for,” Vasella said. “It’s too self-evident to mention. You don’t think they could have been referring to some other money altogether?”

“Grant’s dead,” I said.

“So he is. Could this Constantine have been lying — repeating something which hadn’t been said?”

I shrugged. “I don’t get it, if he was. The only reason I went to Grant’s was because of what he told me. Grant’s money has to be the motive, one way or another.”

“Something’s missing, all right.” Vasella reached to a phone. “This O. J. Fosburgh — you have any idea where he lives?”

“His office would probably have an all-night service.”

He told his switchboard to put through the call, hanging up again. “There a collect-for-questioning on Constantine?” he asked Toomey.

“DiMag put it through as soon as we got the message on that telegram. Vice Squad finally admitted they’d heard of him, once we gave them the full name.”

“Yeah, that telegram — wherever that fits in.” Vasella puffed a cheek. “I think we better see that painter in here also, Floyd-Ivan Klobb. If he’s able to provide girls for the racket there could be some sort of intimidation involved.”

Toomey went out. The stenographer was still sitting, patient as a tin can on a shelf. Vasella nodded her out also. The phone rang before the door had closed after her.

Vasella identified himself and then apologized for the hour. There were pauses while he told Fosburgh about Grant’s death. He verified my position, and after that there was considerable talk about Grant’s financial situation. I sat there contemplating Marilyn again.

I decided she had a face that should have been given even more currency than it was. In fact currency was what it belonged on. They should have printed her picture on the one-dollar bill.

Toomey came back just as Vasella hung up. “No one gets it,” Vasella said.

I dropped a cigarette into a dented brass spittoon, waiting.

“I mean no individuals. Grant was to receive all income the trust earned for the duration of his life, but the capital itself couldn’t be touched. Now it gets distributed to charitable and educational organizations. All of it — there’s absolutely no provision for any of Grant’s own heirs.”

“People wouldn’t have to know that,” Toomey said. “Or anyhow, look at the interest on thirteen million bucks. Even at an improbable three percent it’s what? — roughly four hundred thousand a year. The guy lived like he was on relief. Take off three-fourths for taxes — Turk’s still in line for a cool hundred grand—”

Vasella got to his feet heavily. “We’ll get nowhere until we talk to these people,” he said. “I want you to ride herd on those pick-ups, Floyd. Let’s see some action.”

He started for the door. “You want any more from me?” I asked him.

He stopped. “You admit having had one of the murder weapons in your possession within a half hour of the first killing tonight,” he said with no intonation. “You left that corpse and went almost directly to another, telling us it was only your professional sense of deduction which sent you there.” He pressed his lips together. “Should I be able to think of anything else we might want you for? You can sign the statement if it’s ready, or tomorrow if it isn’t. Thank you for your cooperation.”

He let me meet his gaze for another few seconds and then went out, a ponderous, not quite impassive man who did not like having rank pulled on him any better than DiMaggio did, but who would always be too efficient a cop to let it interfere with the way he thought he should do his job. Toomey gave me a parting wave and said, “Take it slow,” but after two meetings Toomey would have found it hard to be unkindly disposed toward Attila the Hun. I made a mental note never to use

Brannigan’s name again, short of finding myself on the wrong end of a hose.

I patted Marilyn on a cheek, following after them. I still liked the idea, although not on paper money at that, and not just her face. Molded on a coin, front and back side both.

I was being light-headed again after all, but I realized I was bushed. The statement wasn’t ready. I took a cab to the lot near the Blue Soldier where the Chevy had been since nine o’clock.

I picked up a Mirror and checked the ball scores, but that only made me feel more stale. Ted Williams had gone hitless, and they’d had Stan the Man on the bench. The good people were getting old. A lot of them were already long dead, like John Garfield, Marcel Cerdan, Mel Ott. Fred Allen was dead too. Pretty soon I’d have no heroes left, unless I could teach myself to believe in Sal Mineo.

I left the car in the garage on Third, walked back the two blocks, climbed my one flight. The overhead bulb in the hall outside my door had burned out. They weren’t making bulbs like they used to.

They weren’t making private detectives like they used to either. I’d already turned the key before it occurred to me to find out who had wanted to make the next flight dark enough to hide on.

It was Peter J. Peters. He was sitting four steps up, as still as hewn rock, but I couldn’t miss the gun in his hand.

I got the door open, grinning from ear to ear.

The gun was a Smith and Wesson military.38, but it might have been a musty volume of Spinoza he’d been browsing through. I went up quietly and worked it out of his fingers before I woke him.