Meet Me at the Morgue

chapter 9

When we reached the County Annex, Ann was locking the door of the office. I introduced her to Forest.

“Has Mrs. Johnson gone home?”

“Yes,” she said. “I promised to drive out after her. Helen shouldn’t be alone, and she doesn’t seem to have any friends or relatives available.”

“You’re a dutiful girl.”

She flinched at the compliment, and bit her lower lip. “I have nothing better to do.”

“I wonder, might I hitch a ride with you, Miss Devon?” Forest spoke very politely. Ann was pretty. “I’m not familiar with the local topography.”

“Of course.” She turned to me in a sudden flurry of impulse: “Howie, I have to talk to you, privately.”

“Right now?”

“Please, if you have the time.”

Forest put in swiftly: “That’s all right. I’d like to look over your probation report on Miner.”

Ann brought it out of the files and followed me into my office, closing the door. She stood with her hands behind her, looking down at the worn cork floor-covering between us:

“I’m afraid you’re going to think a good deal less of me, after today.”

“That little business with Seifel? Not a bit of it. It’s even a hopeful sign. I was beginning to be afraid that all your feelings were for other people.”

“I’m really a jealous vixen under the skin. That’s not what I wanted to say, though.”

“Strangely enough, I didn’t think it was.”

“I’m in love with him,” she said.

“I didn’t even know that you and Seifel were friends.”

“We’re not, exactly. I don’t approve of him. He doesn’t take me seriously at all. He baits me for being a bluestocking. But ever since he came to the office that day–”

“What day?”

“It was in February, when he was working up the Miner case. He came in to ask some questions. You were up in the north end of the county, and Alex was out. We got to talking, and he asked me to have lunch with him. I’ve been seeing him ever since.”

“It’s no crime. Why the secrecy?”

“He doesn’t want his mother to know. As a matter of fact, I didn’t want you to know.”

“Both of your reasons sound peculiar to me.”

“Do they? I guess I’m a little ashamed of myself, Howie. He’s not my type. Sometimes I think I hate him. All he’s interested in is money and social success. He’s a money-hungry egotist. How could I fall in love with a man like that? Yet I can’t get him out of my head. I dream about him at night. What’s happened to me, Howie?”

“First love, maybe. You’re having a late adolescence. Better late than never.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“Is that so terrible? I admit I’m surprised, but I’m not exactly shocked. It’s time he got married, anyway, and you, too.”

“You don’t think he’d marry me? No. He’ll wait for Mr. Johnson to die, and marry her.” Her voice had sunk to a melodramatic whisper.

“You’re making him out worse than he is. There’s nothing the matter with Seifel a good woman couldn’t fix. He’s simply spoiled. I’ll bet a nickel his mother has spoiled him all his life.”

“She has. I’ve seen them together. He’s just like a big cat, purring when she strokes him. Oh, I despise that man!”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

She turned away and wiped her brimming eyes. Her voice came muffled through Kleenex: “Howie, there’s something else. I’m sorry. This wasn’t what I meant to talk about at all. You sort of drew it out of me.”

“Call me Torquemada.”

“No, don’t joke now. This is serious. It may be important. I ought to have told you right away. I couldn’t make myself. I don’t know what’s becoming of me, morally–”

“Buck up,” I said loudly and firmly. “You have something to tell me. I’m here.”

“I’ve seen the dead man before, Howie.”

“Where?”

“With Larry Seifel. I was afraid to tell you.”

“Go on. When was this, lately?”

“It was in February, the day Fred Miner was tried. I met Larry at the door of the courtroom – we were going to have lunch together. He and this man were in the empty courtroom, talking.”

“Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t have spoken if I weren’t. I couldn’t forget that face, those reddish eyes. And the bald head. He wasn’t wearing a toupee that day.”

“What were they talking about?”

“I didn’t listen. They came to the door together. Larry shook hands with him, and said something about getting in touch with him in Los Angeles if he ever needed his help.”

“If Larry ever needed his help?”

“Yes. What are you going to do about it, Howie?”

“Get a positive identification from Seifel, naturally. If he’s willing to make one.”

She took hold of my arm with both hands, looking up at my face through tears. “Please don’t tell him I told you.”

“Are you so crazy about him?”

“It’s terrible. I feel lonely all the time I’m not seeing him.”

“Even if he’s mixed up in this business?”

She pressed her face against my shoulder. “He is mixed up in it, I know he is. I realized it as soon as I saw that man in the back of the mortuary. It doesn’t seem to change my feeling.”

The fine tremor of her nerves passed through her hands to my arm. Her hair had disarrayed itself. I smoothed it with my free hand.

“You’re my good right arm, Ann. I don’t want you going to pieces.”

“I’m not.” She straightened up, refastening bobby pins, regrouping her forces.

“Go home and take a rest. Forget about Mrs. Johnson. She’s made of strong stuff, and doing perfectly well.”

“So am I.” She managed to smile. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll put on my public look. Actually, I’m better off with somebody else to think about.”

“Do you like her?”

“Of course I do. I think she’s a marvelous woman.” Ann had already put on her public look. “Don’t you?”

Helen Johnson’s face was suddenly in my mind. I realized that she was a beautiful woman. Her beauty wasn’t dazzling. It was simply there, something definite and solid that had never entirely left my mind from the moment I met her.

“Don’t you?” Ann repeated with her Mona Lisa smile.

I refused to answer on the grounds that my reply might tend to incriminate me. “Beat it now, Ann. Forest is waiting for you.”

“If I’m your good right arm, you won’t tell Larry, will you?”

“Not unless I have to. But he’ll know.”

“I can’t help that, can I?”