Murder, My Love

Chapter Twelve

Streetlights, giving the apartment building’s base a jaundiced glow, reached upward to create shadows that made the Dakota seem even more like something out of an old Universal creep show. Skeletal branches from Central Park across the way seemed to extend like the bony fingers of witchy hands casting spells, while occasional lighted windows stared back unblinkingly like random yellow eyes. The tan-and-brown-edged building loomed like a mammoth gingerbread house suggesting yet another witch might wait within.

The cabbie, whose name on the little card by his picture was a mess of consonants in search of a few more vowels, said, “So many famous people live at this place. Why here?”

“It’s a museum,” I said. “And they’re the exhibits.”

He nodded. That made sense to him.

I was still on the visitors’ list and the uniformed doorman was damn near friendly this time, and didn’t even mind when I asked him a few questions. I got the answers I hoped for, and rewarded him with a five-spot. His grin told me the rich-and-famous tenants probably weren’t as generous. They almost never were.

I made my way through the tunnel-like entry to the nearest of the four corner elevators. Up on the seventh floor, the gloom of the corridor was offset by the feeling you were walking around inside some fine antique. The place even smelled like yesterday.

I used the buzzer at the door of Judy Garland’s former digs. It took a couple of tries before Nicole Winters — having checked the peephole — flung that door open wide. No ponytail today — all that red hair was spilling around her shoulders, so carelessly, perfectly arranged — and the moist red of the lipstick on her wide, full mouth had an orange cast. That went well with her trademark green, this time expressed by a loose-fitting, low-necked lime silk blouse, untucked, and emerald velvet slacks, her feet bare and barely showing, the dark green eyes big and wide, a fashion accessory in and of themselves.

But, at the moment, an alarmed one.

My hat was in my hands and she all but shrieked, “Mike! What happened to you?”

I gave her half a grin and gestured to the hematoma. “Somebody tried to kick some sense into me. Sorry to just drop by.”

“Come in! Come in!” she said, gesturing with a green-nailed hand, holding the door open wide. “Let me take your coat.”

I let her hang it up and the hat, too.

“Jamie told me about that poor woman at the office,” she said, frowning sadly, shaking her head, red hair dancing on her shoulders. “Imagine getting run down by some hopped-up kid! It’s getting to where you can’t cross a city street and not be at risk.”

“Pretty brutal out there, yeah.”

The closet-lined hallway, all that dark wood a ghost of the original apartment, gave her elbow room enough to walk at my side and slip her arm through mine, escorting me along with a lovely smile. She didn’t seem to be mad at me anymore for turning down the offer of her body.

“If you came to talk to Jamie,” she said, “I’m afraid you’re out of luck. He’s off at some political affair.”

Always one affair or another for Senator Winters, I thought.

She was saying, “A testimonial dinner for a state congressman or something. As a rule I skip that kind of thing. Just not devoted enough a wife, I guess.”

“It’s you I wanted to talk to, anyway.”

She smiled, pleased. “Oh. All right. Shall I fix us drinks?”

“Sure.”

She did that at the wet bar while I plopped down on the pop-art sofa in the vast white living room, which was illuminated by subtle track lighting, neither bright nor dim. I unbuttoned my suit coat, getting comfy... including easy access to the .45 under my left arm. The curtains were pulled back to reveal the windows on Central Park by night, street lamps throughout all the lush greenery glowing like stationary fireflies while well-lit roadways made veins of winking light coursing through the darkness.

The sky over the park, hovering above the city like a threat, was a dark charcoal mass of moving clouds, with thunder distant but ever present. Little bursts of electricity crackled and sparked and disappeared, adding gold filigree momentarily to what might have been dirty industrial smoke.

Somehow Nicole summoned music on an unseen sound system — Miles Davis, “Lift to the Scaffold” — and then delivered me a CC and ginger, bringing along a glass of white wine for herself. She sat near me — on the red center cushion — and propped those bare feet of hers on the table. Even her damn toenails were green — lime, like her blouse. She was wearing no bra under it and her nipples dared me to notice, the curves of her breasts peek-a-booing at the edges of the low, tear-drop neckline.

She seemed to be over the death of that “poor woman.”

I asked her, “When did you last speak to your husband?”

She shrugged. “On the phone. He was at the office. A police captain named... Chandler was it?”

“Chambers.”

“This Captain Chambers wanted to talk to Jamie.”

“So the senator didn’t mention to you what happened in Brooklyn.”

She sipped wine. Looked at me, only mildly interested. “Why? Nothing ever happens in Brooklyn. Did something happen there anyway?”

So I told her, and she quickly got more than mildly interested. I told her about the dead landlady, the murdered blackmail couple, and how I’d been jumped by their balaclava-sporting killer. Miles Davis accompanied me with a particularly mournful trumpet.

“Which is how I got this,” I said, pointing to my purple badge of courage.

“Well, my husband and I had nothing to do with any of that,” Nicole said, as if discussing a poorly decorated room.

“I didn’t say you did.”

“You certainly can’t suspect me, or Jamie, or the two of us of anything as... as despicable as that.”

I smirked. “That word despicable always makes me think of Daffy Duck. Lisp it for me, why don’t you?”

She ignored that and shook a finger at my chest and her forehead frowned. “Who you should talk to is that self-righteous hypocrite Harrison Hughes! Think about it, Mike. You exposed his blackmail and you unmasked his accomplices. He’s covering up! And murdering to do it. You know, he has the connections to have it done! They say he was always in the mob’s pocket.”

Miles had gotten very jazzy now, really up-tempo.

“Do they?” I said. “Well, just the same, I can’t go after him.”

“Because he’s a big shot?”

“No. Because he’s dead.”

The green eyes goggled at me and her orange-red mouth dropped open like a trapdoor. “What?”

I repeated it.

“...How? When? My God, Mike — what the hell is going on?”

She was trying really hard, and Miles had gotten mournful again; still, it just wasn’t playing.

But I went along. I said, “I’d say somebody — or some-bodies — are panicking.”

She tried confusion. “Where did you hear about this? It wasn’t on the news!”

“I saw it.” I nodded vaguely in the direction of the Waldorf. “I just came from the scene of the governor’s supposed suicide.”

Somehow the eyes got even wider. “He killed himself?... What do you mean, ‘supposed’?”

“It was a fairly clumsy job.”

I sipped my drink. I’d watched her mix it, by the way. Unless she pre-doctored the Canadian Club and/or the Canada Dry, I hadn’t been slipped a mickey.

I went on: “I figure you dictated the note. Didn’t sound like Hughes — bragging before he blew his brains out? Not his style. But calling your husband a ‘good man,’ with the governor admitting he himself had failed to be one? That sounded like something you’d come up with. Also, the guv would’ve had a word or two for his kids. Addressed them by name, not just ‘my children.’”

She was sitting on the edge of her couch cushion, torso swung toward me, her chin high, her eyes slitted now as they gazed down at me. “This is nonsense, Mr. Hammer. Ridiculous, libelous nonsense.”

“Not libel. It’s not in writing.” I shrugged. “Slander maybe. Conjecture surely.”

The beautiful face was frozen now. “I suggest you stop this insulting performance right now.”

But I didn’t. And Miles picked the tempo back up, urging me along.

“Now, I could call that Captain Chambers you mentioned... he’s a buddy of mine, I was just with him, over at the late governor’s suite... and I could suggest he get a warrant to shake this little pad of yours down. I have a feeling he might find a typewriter of the same brand and model as the portable Hughes supposedly used. It’s probably in your live-in help’s room right now. Even with identical models, the forensics guys will be able to tell which machine that note was typed on. How you knew what brand the governor used, I don’t know. Wouldn’t have been a hard piece of information to come up with.”

The lovely features thawed just enough to allow in the slightest smug smile. “You want to call your police captain friend? I can show you to the phone, if you like. Go on. Let him get his warrant.”

My smile went full-tilt grin. “Ah. So you’ve disposed of the typewriter. Well, I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re anything but a fool. You probably disposed of the silencer, too.”

“Silencer?”

I pawed the air. “Oh, please, honey. The governor has neighbors all around him, but none of ’em heard the blast of that nine mil? Don’t insult my intelligence, such as it is.”

An orange-red smile taunted me. “Just who was my accomplice in all this flawed cleverness? My husband, I suppose?”

“In the planning, yes. In the execution? Your majordomo, of course. Andrew Morrow shot Hughes — in the left side of his head, which was also a goof, but never mind — and then dropped the gun there by the dead man’s limp fingers. If it’s the same weapon that killed the Brooklyn pair — in which case ballistics will easily show it — that might tie the governor in. Might not hold up, though. Hughes is, or was, a public figure and could easily have been seen. And he would’ve had to make it to Brooklyn before I did.”

Miles had settled down again.

“Unless,” she said, her expression amused, her air somewhat regal, “he sent one of his mob friends. And, Mike — I can provide an alibi for Andrew.”

I nodded. “And he for you, right? That might play. Where is he, by the way?”

“It’s his night off.”

“Good to know. Means we can get cozy here in your little studio apartment with its romantic park view, if some dark sky doesn’t dampen things. Maybe we could light one of the fireplaces. You can strip down again and see how you do this time. Honey, we’re going to be great friends.”

I leaned over and surprised the hell out of her by giving her a great big kiss. When I withdrew, it made a Dinah Shore smack and everything, and left that perfect orange-red mouth a little smeared.

“Are you insane?” she asked, quietly, as if she really wondered.

“That’s been an issue over the years,” I admitted. “Look. You’re my client. I’m on your side. Frankly, with the kind of money you have, I’d be on your side even without those killer looks of yours. So you spent some of that loot getting rid of some low-life blackmailers? Do I look like I give a damn?”

Miles and me were just grooving along now.

Her eyes narrowed, half suspicious, half hopeful. She was studying me the way a cancer doctor does a critical slide.

“As for the governor,” I said and shrugged, “he paid his money and he made his choice. He tossed away everything he ever said he believed in, and threw in with a couple of penny-ante blackmailers. Don’t look for me to squeeze a tear out for that slob.”

The truth? I already had. And Harrison Hughes was no slob.

She was almost squinting now, trying desperately to bring me into focus. “What are you saying, Mike?”

I put a hand on her thigh. Squeezed. Stroked. “I’m saying I’m on your side, doll, as long as we can come to terms. Now, I’m no blackmailer myself, but I am here to help. Or I will be if you can clear up one thing.”

“What would that be?”

I frowned, just a little. “That Long girl. Lisa Long. Why did she have to die? Wasn’t the poor woman, as you put it, just another victim in this blackmail set-up?”

She shook her head. “That was an accident. A hit-and-run. A terrible coincidence.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth.” Her chin came up again. “I swear I had nothing to do with that. And there’s one thing I have to make clear. My husband wasn’t part of this.”

“Really?”

Her nod was firm. “Really. I acted in what I thought were his best interests. Perhaps... perhaps foolishly.” She drew a deep breath, then let it out; she was trembling. “But I only meant to clear out this blot on him and his reputation. To sweep this blackmail... and these blackmailers... away.”

“Nothing to do with wanting to be First Lady someday.”

That chin came up again. “My husband has a great future ahead of him and of course I want to be part of it. But that’s only part of why I’d do anything it takes for him to have that future.”

Now I was doing the studying.

I’d encountered a lot of people willing to do a lot of things in my many years dealing with the darkness in human beings. But this was a whole new kind of crazy.

Finally I said, “All right. Let’s say I buy all that. That still leaves us with four murders. Somebody has to go down for all this. And I elect your precious Andrew Morrow.”

Her head moved slightly to her right. Softly, she asked, “Why Andrew?”

“Baby, come on. You need to level with me. I can already identify him. Where do you think I got this.” I pointed to the purple patch on my skull again. “He killed those two amateur-night blackmail artists in Brooklyn, and before he left, he found the original tape and a bunch of dupes. Selling him out should be no problem for you, unless he tucked one of those copies away as an insurance policy.”

Blue notes from Miles now.

She shook her head. Her voice was almost a whisper, as if she were keeping a secret, when she said, “No. No, he’s loyal. He... well, Andrew loves me. And as far as he’s concerned, I love him. He knows that Jamie and I, we... we have an arrangement where certain of our needs are concerned. In the larger sense, we’re partners in...”

“Crime?”

“Politics. We both believe strongly in the social causes we support. Whatever our... personal peccadilloes might be... our intentions are... pure.”

Not only could she say that with a straight face, she really seemed to believe it.

I said, “I never heard murder called a peccadillo before. But okay. As for the Morrow kid, he could come in very handy for our purposes.”

“How is that?”

I opened a hand. “Well, he’s the actual murderer, isn’t he? The Dunn woman and her bartender beau are both on his score card — not to mention the occasional crushed landlady skull — and he did in the governor, not all that long ago. Witnesses probably saw him at the Waldorf. I can I.D. him in Brooklyn. He was in a stocking mask, but I can say I recognized him from his eyes and build. What’s a little white lie here and there? All you have to do is tell the truth, more or less. That he was obsessively in love with you, and when the governor and that Brooklyn pair tried to blackmail you, he flew into action on his own volition... totally unprompted by you and your husband, of course.”

“But the blackmail...”

“What precisely Hughes intended to blackmail you over will be lost in the shuffle. And the police will cooperate. They’ll have no appetite to take on a U.S. senator! It’ll be a snap to make that go away.”

“You really think so?”

I nodded. “The original cassette tape is gone and, if you’re right about your loyal lapdog, all the dupes are, too. You could be in the clear. It’s an old term, but it’s apropos — you and Jamie need a fall guy. And Andrew would do just fine.”

“You can’t expect Andrew to go along with that,” she said, bending close, voice low. “Not even if I arrange a lawyer who could get him off on an insanity plea or some other technicality, or sneak him out of the country, when he’s out on bail. And he knows things! If he talked... no. No, this will never work.”

I gestured to myself. “Again, do I look like somebody who trips over the niceties of the law? Do you know how many bad guys in my storied career I’ve put down and called it self-defense? And that pretty-boy son of a bitch kicked me in the head, remember! We rig something up, I put Morrow out of his misery, and presto, a gun suddenly appears in his cold dead fingers. You could even witness it!”

That was his cue.

I figured he’d hear it and respond. I knew he was in the apartment — the doorman had seen him leave and come back, with the timing right for Morrow to get to the Waldorf and stage the suicide, and then get back afterward, before I dropped by.

And when I’d been invited in, Nicole had practically shouted my name, and she had been far more loudly concerned about my bruised head than she had any reason to be... not unless she was warning her little lover boy to run off to his hidey hole.

But I figured the house stud would be eavesdropping, and I was right, because here he was.

Staggering out in a gray designer suit, light gray shirt, and dark gray tie that he’d almost certainly worn to blend in when he went to the Waldorf earlier. But Andrew Morrow clutched something in his hand he would not have carried openly through the hotel lobby...

...a gun.

A Browning 9mm again. Obviously his weapon of choice. The handsome, chin-dimpled mug under the slicked-back black hair wore the kind of devastated, disappointed look kids have when they learn Santa is a hoax.

He moved toward us in a slow lurch, almost dancing to Miles in a slow-motion free-form number.

“Nicole... you couldn’t do what he says.” Morrow swallowed. Shook his head. “You couldn’t do that to me.”

She had turned around on the couch when she heard him enter, and was on her knees on the lower cushion, as if begging or maybe praying, leaning her elbows against the upper one, hands clasped. “No! No, of course not, darling! I was just... just...”

“Stringing me along,” I said, turning to look at him casually as he approached where we sat, coming up from behind us. “Maybe she was. Or maybe she was going to rat you out. Anything you say about all this would sound like the ravings of some obsessive lovesick loon.”

“Shut up!”

“Or maybe she’d just serve you up to me for slaughter.”

“Shut up!”

He came at me faster than I figured, and was swinging the gun-in-hand to smack me with it, when he should have just fired at me — not that it would have done any good because I leapt over the back of the couch and flung myself at him, taking him down, and sending the couch over with me and onto its back, spilling Nicole, sending her tumbling and crying out, to land in a pile on the floor. I was on top of the bastard then, jamming a forearm into his throat, producing a choking gurgle, while with my left hand I had his wrist, the wrist that went with the fist that had the Browning in it. He was strong, and younger than me, and it was my left against his right, which gave him the advantage as we waved it around. He was forcing the snout of that gun toward me, with some success, but when it went off, the bullet flew between us, right past me like a rocket taking off, the explosion of it turning my ears to a whining near-deafness, but I heard her gasp just the same, when the bullet hit.

I didn’t see it hit, but I saw where it hit, in her throat as she sat awkwardly on that bone-color floor, the entry wound like a shimmering ruby in a necklace at the hollow of her neck, and I saw too the blood stream out of the back of her, scarlet with particles of bone from a shattered section of spine. She fell back, like a hinge had broken, and her hair surrounded her like a crown of flames until it quickly soaked in her blood and became just one damn grotesque mess framing a face that somehow still managed to be lovely, though the green eyes had filmed over and couldn’t even see the ceiling they were staring at.

Both of us, the majordomo and I, froze, taking this in, but he recovered faster, shoving me off and scrambling across the floor toward her. As I got to my feet, he scooped her in his arms, saying, “Darling! No! Not you! No!”

Then he lay her down quickly but gently and there was nothing handsome about the teeth-bared face with the wild dark tear-oozing eyes in it when he rose and began to raise the Browning and aim it at me, unsteadily, but aiming it nonetheless.

“You’ve killed her! She’s dead.” Like Nicole had been the Wicked Witch of the West and not the toast of the East Side. “I’m going to make you suffer...”

Enough of this shit.

I yanked out the .45 and drilled the idiot in the head.