Meet Me at the Morgue

chapter 15

The apartment was over an attached garage on a quiet rundown residential street. Its windows were dark, but there were lights and sounds in the adjoining house. It was a white frame bungalow whose lines aspired, rather feebly, to Colonial. The sounds inside were radio voices. When I rang the front-door bell, the voices were cut off suddenly, and soft slow footsteps approached the door.

The door was opened about four inches, on a chain. Spectacled eyes looked down a long female nose at me. A disapproving mouth said: “You’ve interrupted my favorite program. You’d think I had the right to some peace. What is it you want?”

“I’m sorry. The matter is urgent. I’m trying to find a girl who calls herself Molly Fawn.”

Her disapproval hardened, descending over her long face like an icecap. “I know nothing whatever about her. If you’re another one of her worthless friends–”

“I’m a probation officer,” I said, before she could close the door. “I’m investigating a very serious case.”

The icecap thawed perceptibly. Something that might have been pleasure glinted behind the spectacles. “Is she in trouble? I told that girl that she was heading for trouble, with her carryings-on. Why, when I was her age, I wasn’t allowed to speak to a man. Father was strict with we girls–”

“May I come in?”

She unhooked the chain and opened the door another foot, just wide enough for me to squeeze through. “Promise you won’t notice the condition of the house.”

The house was very clean, and preternaturally neat, like a barracks awaiting inspection. But everything in it was old: the carpeting, the furniture, even the outdated calendar in the hallway. The air in the living-room was stale and heavy, laden with an odor like musty spice. A faded motto on the wall above a closed upright piano stated: “The smoke ascends as lightly from the cottage hearth as from the haughty palace.”

She said, when she saw me reading it: “A great truth, isn’t it? Would you like to sit down, Mr.–?”

“Cross, Howard Cross.”

“I am Miss Hilda Trenton. Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Cross.”

We sat in facing platform-rockers in front of the old cabinet radio. It was still lighted and humming like a repressed desire. Miss Trenton leaned towards me, sharp elbows on sharp knees: “What has she done?”

“I’m trying to find out. I take it she doesn’t live here any more.”

“She was only here for a month or so, and I can tell you I wouldn’t rent her the apartment again if she came to me on bended knee.” She smiled grimly. “Of course she won’t. She left owing a week’s rent – decamped one day while I was at work without a by-your-leave. I was glad to see her go, to tell you the truth. I have a very nice young couple in the apartment now.”

“When did she leave?”

“It was early in January, I don’t remember the exact date.”

“And naturally she didn’t give you a forwarding address.”

“I should say not. She still owes me eighteen dollars. I was foolish to trust her, even for a single week. Molly was full of stories, how her ship was due to come in any day. She was going to get a movie job and be a star and pay me double for waiting. Or else she was going to get married to a wonderful young man.” She sniffed. “No decent young man would marry her.”

“Why not?”

“She was morally loose, that’s why. I saw her company, masculine company, at all hours of the day and night. It’s a good thing she left when she did. I was thinking about evicting her.” She patted the thin gray hair on top of her head. “But I let my charitable impulses get the better of me. I’m always doing that, Mr. Cross. People take advantage of it. It’s my great vice.”

“You say she took off in a hurry. Did she leave anything behind?”

She thought about it. “Not a thing, not a single, solitary thing.” Miss Trenton was not a good liar. The shortsighted eyes behind the spectacles became suffused with moisture, and she coughed. “The apartment is completely furnished, you see. All she brought in was her clothes.”

I said with all the impressiveness I could muster: “I know you’re an upright citizen, Miss Trenton. I can rely on you to keep this to yourself. Molly Fawn is involved in a kidnapping case. If you know of any clue to her whereabouts, her personal life, her connections, it’s your duty to let us know.”

“Kidnapping! How dreadful!” She hugged her shoulders, and looked at the doors and windows of the room. “I haven’t the faintest notion, haven’t seen or heard of her since January. Now her personal life, that’s another matter. She carried on something fierce with her men friends. There was dancing and parties in the apartment all hours of the night. And the things they said to each other!”

“You could hear them?”

“Well, I keep my car in the garage underneath. Some nights when I’d get home from work I’d be sitting in my car, trying to gather up enough energy to come into the house – I couldn’t help but hear them. Other times when I was up in the attic, looking for something – well, the partition is thin, just one thickness of wallboard. I heard their nasty stories and talk. It grieved me to the bone to hear a young girl go on like that.” She broke off and stared at her feet, which were shod in sensible black oxfords. If she felt grief, it was probably for herself.

“Did you see the men?”

“The stairs are on the other side of the garage. She generally smuggled them in and out when I wasn’t looking.”

“You must have seen their cars.”

“I don’t know a thing about cars. I’m still driving Father’s old Ford.”

“Perhaps you heard – overheard some of their names?”

She leaned her head to one side, one forefinger pressed into the hollow of the cheek. “There was a man called Art,” she said after a while. “Molly didn’t use his last name, just Art or Artie. They fought like cats and dogs when he came, called each other bad names – names I wouldn’t soil my tongue with.”

“What were they fighting about?”

“I could hardly tell. I didn’t listen, you see, it’s just what I overheard, accidentally.”

“Of course.”

“He kept wanting her to go away with him. She wouldn’t go. She said he couldn’t offer her enough to make it worth her while, that she had better prospects. Besides, she was always saying he was a crook. I tell you, Mr. Cross, it was terrible to have to listen to. The other fellow sounded much nicer to me. Not nice, but nicer.”

“Other fellow?”

“The younger one, the one that came most often. He had a lovely voice, I’ll say that for him.” The eyes behind the spectacles grew soft with reminiscence, as if the unknown voice had been speaking to her, wooing her subtly through the attic wallboard. “They had their arguments, too, but with Kerry it was the other way around. She wanted him to marry–”

“Kerry?” I said.

“Did I say Kerry? It must have just slipped out. That was his name, at least the name she called him.”

“Kerry Snow?”

“I never knew his last name. They were on a first-name basis.”

“I gathered that. What did they talk about?”

“Themselves. Each other. He was always saying he’d never trust a woman. She always claimed to be different. Then he’d make fun of her, and start her crying. I almost felt sorry for her sometimes.”

I said: “Miss Trenton, as a woman of the world you won’t object to my asking: were they living together?”

“Certainly not! I’d never permit such a thing in my apartment. Sometimes he stayed all night, of course. They’d talk all night.” She added hastily: “I suffer from insomnia, I couldn’t help hearing them.”

“Did you ever see this Kerry?”

“Once or twice I did, at least I think it was him. I saw him sneaking out in the morning. I’m an early riser, I have to be. I’m due at the office every morning at five to eight, and it’s halfway across town–”

“Can you describe him?”

“He’s young, not over thirty I’d say. I suppose some women would consider him attractive, if you like that type of good looks. He has blondish hair, sort of wavy over the forehead, and nice clean-cut features if it wasn’t for the sneaky look. He’s a well-built young man, I’ll say that for him.”

“You must have seen his car, Miss Trenton. Think about it, now.”

She screwed up her eyes and mouth in concentration: the wrinkled face was like a little girl’s, cartooned by time. “It was a big car, I noticed that, blue in color, I believe.”

“What year?”

“Well, it wasn’t new. It still looked pretty good.”

“Would you know a Chrysler?”

“No,” she said. “I never did know the different makes of cars. It was some kind of sedan, I remember that.”

“Take your time now, Miss Trenton. See if you can dredge up any more facts about Kerry.”

“Is he a kidnapper?”

“Very likely,” I said, though I doubted it. More likely Kerry had been underground since February. “You sit and see what you can remember. There’s something in my car I want to show you.”

On the way back in through the hallway with my briefcase, I found that I didn’t want to enter the living-room again. Its air, laden with faint mustiness and fainter spice, was like an Egyptian tomb where a little life stirred horribly under the windings. I went in anyway. Miss Trenton was rocking placidly. There was something black and oblong in her lap.

“I remembered something, Mr. Cross. She did leave something behind her after all. Don’t you consider I have a right to it, with her owing me rent?”

“It depends on what it is.”

She hefted the black object in her hands. “This camera. She left it in the linen closet, but it’s possible it wasn’t hers. I remember one day her friend Kerry was taking pictures of her in the driveway. She was in one of those strapless bathing-suits, on a Sunday. Soon as I saw what was going on in my driveway, I ordered them inside, I can tell you.”

I took the camera out of its case. It was worn but fairly good, worth perhaps a hundred dollars new. What interested me most about it was the legend stamped on the case in small gold letters: U.S.S. Eureka Bay. The camera itself bore a U.S. Navy serial number.

“This looks like Government property, Miss Trenton.”

“I didn’t mean to keep it,” she said quickly. “What was I to do with it? Molly left it behind her, I didn’t know where she went. I thought I’d just hold on to it until somebody came to claim it. That’s perfectly legitimate–”

“Did Molly have a friend named Fred? Fred Miner?”

“I don’t recollect the name.” Her hands were covertly wiping themselves on her skirt, as if to remove all traces of the camera. “You’ve asked me so many questions, my brain’s in a whirl.”

“Fred is a heavily built man in his thirties, very broad in the shoulders. He has a stiff back. It was broken in the war. He wears old khaki uniforms most of the time. He has rather a large head with heavy features, big jaw and a thick nose, sandy hair cut short, gray eyes. Deep bass voice, Midwestern accent. Fred likes to use Navy slang.”

“Kerry did, too,” she said unexpectedly. “Kerry talked like a sailor. I wish I could remember some of the things he said – like calling the floor a deck, things like that.”

“What about Fred Miner?”

“There wasn’t anybody answering his description. That doesn’t say he wasn’t here. I had better things to do than check up on Molly Fawn, remember that. Anything I heard or saw, it was practically forced on me.”

“I understand that, Miss Trenton. It’s been very good of you to put up with all these questions. There’s one more thing I’d like you to do. I have some pictures here, pictures of a man which were taken after the man’s death. Are you willing to look at them, for identification purposes?”

“I guess so,” she faltered, “if it’s important.”

I laid the photos of Miner’s victim one by one in her hands. She peered down at them through her spectacles.

“It’s Kerry,” she said, in a muffled voice. “I do believe it’s Kerry.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I noticed the tattoo mark on his arm, that Sunday he was taking the pictures. But I don’t understand. You said he was one of the kidnappers. Is he dead?”

“He’s dead.”

“Then he isn’t one of the criminals you’re after?”

“Not any more. He was run over by a car.”

“Isn’t that a shame. And here I was thinking he might come back any day to claim his camera.”

“I’m going to have to take the camera with me.”

“You’re welcome to it.” She rose suddenly, brushing her skirt with her hands, and cried out angrily: “I don’t care for any souvenirs of that girl and her friends, thank you. It was good riddance of bad rubbish.”

I said: “Good night. Don’t bother to let me out.”

“Good night.”

She turned the radio up. Before I started my motor, I could hear the voices brawling and lamenting in her house.