The Body Lovers

Chapter 2

My reception at headquarters wasn't exactly cordial. I gave a detailed statement to a police stenographer in Pat's office, but when he got done with the routine interrogation the new assistant D.A. took it from there, trying to sweat out some angle that connected me to the case. Luckily, Pat deliberately checked out my movements and corroborated them ahead of time, getting both of us off the hook, but not without getting the eager-beaver assistant D.A. red in the face. He gave up in disgust and stamped out of the office after telling me to stay in town.

"He must have read that in a book somewhere," I told Pat.

"Don't mind him. The front office gets spooked when sensational cases hit the papers in an election year."

"Don't kid with me, Pat. It smells like they're setting you up to be the patsy if something goes sour."

"You know how they're shaking up the department. Too many of the good ones already retired out in disgust."

"Don't let those political slobs ride you."

"I'm a paid employee, buddy."

I grinned at him. "Well, I'm not, and I got a big mouth. Outside a dozen reporters are waiting for me to show and I can do a little sounding off when I get rubbed wrong."

"Knock it off."

"Hell, no trouble."

"Forget it. You get to see Mitch Temple?"

"Not yet."

"Do that much and you'll do me a favor. That's all I ask. The rest we can handle just fine right here."

"I told you before I'm not in this."

"Tell it to the boys waiting outside." He got up and waved to the door. "Let's go. Your public awaits."

Pat sweated out the interview with me, watched me stand for pictures and nodded with approval when I parried the questions. For a change I didn't have to dodge and they knew it was because my story was a straight one. A couple wanted my opinion on the kill, but I shrugged it off. So far it was only Mitch Temple who had tried to tie in the earlier murder with the redhead, so there wasn't anything from that direction. If there was a tieup, Pat would find it. Right now it was only guesswork.

When they finished with me we went down to the coffee urn and drew a couple of cups. "You did pretty well back there."

"Nothing to tell them."

"Thanks for not guessing. Maybe I have something to tell you."

"Maybe I'd just as soon not know."

"Yeah," Pat said sourly. "So far there's no definite connection with those negligees. If the first one was a suicide, it's common enough. More than half who do the dutch act go out naked or partially dressed, though damned if I know why."

"You said if, Pat."

"Our little M.E. friend pursued his hobby further than I thought. Before they carted the corpse off he took tissue samples for further study. He won't commit himself positively, but he seems satisfied that his diagnosis was correct As far as he's concerned, that first dame was poisoned, slowly and painfully."

"What can you do about it?"

"Nothing. There's no body to exhume and no way of proving those tissue samples came from the original corpse. Given a few more days and there won't be any trace of the chemical that was administered. It's deteriorated."

"And the other one?"

"A whip that left pretty definite imprints on the flesh. They match specialty items shipped from Australia for a few circus and stage acts."

"Trace the buyers?"

Pat nodded. "The regulars buy them in dozen lots. Straight people. The trouble is, the import house plants them around in all sorts of places...even to advertising them in those fetish magazines. We checked their orders and they've sold hundreds by mail alone. It would be damn near impossible to trace one back."

"That leaves her prints."

"And her pictures. The photo lab did a pretty good job of reconstructing her as she must have looked." He held out a four-by-five glossy and I scanned it closely. "Faces like that get remembered," he told me. "She was quite a beauty."

"Can I keep this?"

"Be my guest. It'll be in the paper anyway."

"Good deal. I'll call you after I see Temple."

"Think it'll do any good?"

I let out a short laugh. "I know a few things he wouldn't want to get around."

At twelve-thirty I met Mitch Temple at the Blue Ribbon Restaurant on Forty-fourth Street. He had been an old-line reporter who finally made it with a syndicated column and success seemed to have made him more cynical than ever.

I didn't have to tell him what I was there for. He had laced the facts together as soon as I had called him, and when we had a drink and put our order in he said, "How come you're the errand boy, Mike?"

"Because I might be able to squeeze harder."

He gave me a lopsided grin. "Don't hound me about that party on the yacht. You've used that twice already."

"Then how about the story you never wrote about Lucy Delacort? That house she ran..."

"How did you know about that?"

"I got friends in strange places," I told him. "Old Lucy really went for you, didn't she? In fact..."

"Okay, enough, enough. What do you want?"

"Pat says to lay off the negligee angle in those two deaths."

His face became strangely alert. "I was right," he said softly, "wasn't I?"

"Got me, Mitch. Pat doesn't want to stir in a sex angle, that's all. It gives the wrong people ideas. Give him a few days to work it out and you can do what you please. Can do?"

"That louses up a lot of legwork. I busted my tail tracking down those labels."

"How much did you get?"

Mitch shrugged. "The probable sales outlets. The clerks couldn't give me anything definite because they were hot items. You know, out-of-towners getting something sexy for the wife back home, servicemen making points with a broad, buying exotic goodies in the big city...dames trying to stir a little life into the old man with a little nylon lust."

"That's all?"

"I couldn't get a description to save my tail. Except for a couple of limp characters who took sizes they could wear themselves. Apparently they were regular customers. I could run them down all right, but I don't think it would do any good. Maybe you have an idea."

"Fresh out," I said. "Velda mentioned the color combinations, green with the redhead and black with the blonde if it means anything."

"Hell, they were the fastest selling numbers. They didn't even have a pink or a white in stock. Nobody's modest these days." Mitch leaned back in his chair. "Maybe you'd better tell Pat I'm still working on it."

"So's he."

"I'm surprised nobody else made the connection. It isn't a big one, but it's a connection."

"Probably because that schoolteacher was a suicide."

"Now I'm beginning to wonder about that too," Mitch growled.

"So's Pat, but he's seen other suicides go out in their scantier. Seems to be a common practice."

"Yeah, I know. She could have had a coat on before she hit the river. Nobody would have noticed her then. If she dropped it any one of that crowd along the docks would have picked it up and hocked it for a drink without thinking about it."

"What'll I tell Pat?"

"I'll play along for a week. Meanwhile, I'll still try to get an angle on those gowns." He looked across his glass at me. "Now what about you, Mike? You've always made interesting copy. Where do you stand?"

"Out of it. I'm a working stiff."

"You're not even curious?"

"Sure," I grinned, "but I'll read about it in The News."

After lunch I walked to Broadway with Mitch, turned north and headed back to the office. The morning damp had turned into a drizzle that slicked the streets and turned the sidewalks into a booby trap of umbrella ribs. The papers on the newsstands were still carrying front-page stories of the death of the redhead and the afternoon edition of one had a nice picture of me alongside the body shot of the corpse and one of the kid. I bought three different papers, stuffed them in my raincoat pocket and turned in at the Hackard Building.

Velda had left a note saying she was going to do some shopping and would be back later. Meanwhile, I was to call the Krauss-Tillman office. I dialed Walt Hanley at K-T, got his instructions on another job, hung up and added a postscript to Velda's note saying that I'd be out of the city for a few days and to cancel our supper date.

She was going to be sore about that last part. It was her birthday. But I was lucky. I had forgotten to buy her a present anyway.

The few days were a week long and I stopped by the office at a quarter to five. Velda sat there typing and didn't even look up until she had finished the page. "Happy birthday," I said.

"Thanks," she said sarcastically.

I grinned and tossed down the package I had picked up ten minutes ago. Then she couldn't hold the mad any longer and ripped the paper off it. The pearls glinted a milky white in the light and she let out a little squeal of pleasure. All she could say was, "They real."

"They'd better be."

"Come here, you."

I leaned over and sipped at the rich softness of her mouth and felt that same surge of warmth that came over me whenever she did those woman-things to me.

I pushed her away and took a deep breath. "Better quit while you're ahead."

"But I thought you were winning."

"You were drowning me, kitten."

"Just wait till later."

"Stop talking like that, will you?" I said. "I've been stuck in the bushes a week until I'm ready to pop."

"So I'll pop You."

I rumpled her hair and perched on the edge of the desk. She had my mail stacked up in three piles, circulars, business and personal, and I riffled through them. "Anything important?"

"Haven't you been reading the papers?"

"Kid, where I've been there wasn't anything but hills and rocks and trees."

"They identified the redhead that was killed."

"Who was she?"

"Maxine Delaney. She was a stripper on the West Coast for a while, was picked up twice in a suspected call-girl operation, but released for lack of evidence or complaints by parties involved. She was last heard of in Chicago where she was registered with a model agency and did a few nudies for a photographer there."

"I meet the nicest people, don't I? Any mail?"

"Nothing special. You got a package there from a pen pal, though."

In the personal pile was a flat, six-inch square package with a box number address and a postmark from that famous city on the Hudson that harbors New York's more notorious ex-citizens. I tore it open and took the lid off the box inside.

A stenciled letter informed me that the enclosed was made by a prison inmate and any voluntary contribution I cared to make would go in the recreational fund. The enclosed was a neat black handmade leather wallet and tooled on the front in an elaborate scroll was MICHAEL HAMMER, INSURANCE ADJUSTER. And it was such a nice piece of work too.

I tossed it in front of Velda. "How about that?"

"Your reputation has gone to the dogs." She looked up, read the letter and added, "They have a complaint department."

"Send five bucks. Maybe it's deductible." I dropped the wallet in my pocket and slid off the desk. "Let's have some supper."

"Okay, insurance adjuster."

We were going out the door when the phone rang. I wanted to let it ring, but Velda was too much a secretary for that. She answered it and handed it to me. "It's Pat."

"Hi, buddy," I said.

I couldn't quite pin down his tone of voice. "Mike...when did you see Mitch Temple last?"

"A week ago. Why?"

"Not since?"

"Nope."

"He give you a hard time or anything?"

"Hell no," I told him. "I gave you all the poop on that deal."

"Then tell me this...you got a straight alibi for, say...twenty-four hours ago?"

"Buddy, I can have my time and places verified by three witnesses for the past seven days to this minute. Now what gives?"

"Somebody bumped Temple in his own apartment, one knife thrust through the aorta, and he died all over his fancy oriental rug.

"Who found him?"

"A girl friend who had a key to his apartment She managed to call us before she went to pieces. Get up here. I want to talk to you."

I hung up and looked at Velda, knowing my face was pulled tight. "Trouble?" she asked me.

"Yeah. Somebody killed Mitch Temple."

She knew what I was thinking. "He was poking around on that girl's murder, wasn't he?" I nodded.

"Then what does Pat want with you?"

"Probably every detail of our last conversation. Come on, let's go."

Mitch Temple had an apartment in a new building on the east side, a lavish place occupied by the wealthy or famous, and the uniformed doorman wasn't used to seeing squad cars and police officers parked outside the ornate doorway.

The cop on duty recognized me, passed me through and we took the elevator up to the sixth floor. Two apartments opened off the small lobby, one apparently belonging to an absent tenant, the other wide open, the cops inside busy with routine work.

Pat waved us in and we skirted the stain on the floor near the door and followed him across the room to where the body lay. The lab team wound up their work and stood to one side talking baseball. I said, "Mind?"

"Go ahead," Pat told me.

I knelt by the body and took a look at it. Mitch Temple lay sprawled on his side in a pool of blood, sightless eyes, glazed with death. One hand was still stretched out, clawing at his suitcoat he had jerked off the chair back, his fingers clutching the white linen handkerchief he always wore in his breast pocket. I stood up and looked at the trail of blood from the door to the hole in his chest. It was a good twenty feet long.

"What do you make of it, Pat?"

"Looks like he opened the door to answer the bell, took a direct stab from an eight-inch knife blade and staggered back. Whoever killed him just closed the door and left."

"A wound like that usually drops a man."

"Most of the time."

"What was he after in his coat?"

"Something to stop the flow of blood is my guess. Nothing seems to have been touched. I'm surprised he lived long enough to get that far. So was the Medical Examiner. He fell twice getting to his coat and crawled the last few feet."

"Nobody comes into these apartments without being announced downstairs first," I reminded him.

Pat gave me a disgusted look. "Come on, we haven't pinpointed the time of death yet, but a pro could manage it at the right time. These places are far from foolproof. We're checking out the tenants and anybody else who was here, but I'm not laying any bets well come up with something. The type who live here don't want to be involved in any way. They don't even know their next-door neighbors."

"That's New York," I said.

"Now how about you." It was a statement, not a question.

I looked at him and shook my head. "Count me out. I haven't had contact with him since I saw him last. I told you what he said...he'd lay off his story for a week, but meanwhile he'd keep on working that negligee angle. Think he found something? He had a lot of sources."

Pat shrugged. "Neither his paper nor his secretary had any record of his movements. She said he was gone a lot, but he turned out his column regularly. We're backtracking the items he reported in case it ties in with one of them."

"How about that series he did on the Mafia last month?"

"They're too smart to buck the press. It wouldn't stop anything and throw too much light on them. They want anonymity, not publicity. This is something else."

"Those damn negligees?"

"It's a possible. I hoped you'd come up with something."

I reached in my pocket for my cigarettes and got the wallet instead. "Hell, I'm only an insurance adjuster," I grinned. "It says so right here." I tossed the wallet to Velda. "Here, you can have it." She caught it, and like all women, dropped it in her pocketbook. "Sorry, Pat. I can't give you a damn thing. That is, unless the police department wants to employ me."

"Yeah," he grunted. "I can picture that. Well, you might as well get out of here before the press arrives. They'll blow this one sky high as it is and I don't want them getting cute followup angles involving you."

"Count me out, old buddy."

"If you hear of anything, let me know."

"Sure will."

"There's a side entrance. Take that out."

We started for the door and I turned around as I reached it. "Mind letting me know how things shape up?"

Pat's mouth twitched into a smile. "Okay, nosy."

Supper was a steak in Velda's apartment, a homey little arrangement she set up deliberately, a perfect man trap if there was one. She wore a quilted housecoat of deep blue, belted loosely enough so that when she walked each step exposed a satin length of calf and thigh, provocatively out of reach as she passed by. Sitting opposite me, the lapels stretched over the deep swell of her breasts, and with the gentlest motion of her shoulders, fell apart so I could be taunted by her loveliness.

I finally pushed the plate away, the steak finished, but untasted. She poured the coffee, grinned and said, "See what you're missing?"

"You're a nut." I fished my cigarettes out and stuck one in my mouth. "Light me, will you?"

Velda reached for her pocketbook, dumped some of the stuff out until she found matches and lit my butt. When she was putting the things back she paused with the wallet in her hand and said, "Why would an inmate send you that?"

"You saw the letter. It's part of their rehabilitation program."

"No, I don't mean that. If they're sent to well-known people, certainly they wouldn't mistake their occupation. Especially not yours. It's too bad there's no name of the maker."

"Let's see that." I took the wallet and flipped it open. It was of standard design with card pockets, an identification window and a section for bills. I felt in all the compartments, but nothing was there. "Empty," I told her. "Besides, these things would be checked to make sure nobody was sending messages outside. It could be a cute gimmick."

"Maybe it has a secret compartment," she laughed.

But I didn't laugh. I stared at the wallet a long moment, then felt around the folded edges until I found it, a cleverly contrived secret pocket that cursory examination would never uncover.

That's where the note was.

It was written in pencil, printed in tiny caps on toilet paper. I read it twice to make sure of what I had, digesting every word. Dear Mike, Heard about that redhead on the radio. My sister knew her and the Poston dame. Didn't think much about it when the Poston kid died, but this one bothers me. I ain't heard from Greta in four months. You find her and make her write and I'll pay you when I get out. It was signed, Harry Service.

Velda took the note from my fingers and read it over, frowning. "Poston," she said softly. "Helen Poston. That was the schoolteacher who committed suicide."

"That's the one."

"But this Harry Service...wasn't he the one...?"

"Yeah, I got him sent up."

"Why would he write to you?"

"Maybe he doesn't hold a grudge. Besides, he's not the type to confide in cops. He wouldn't give them the sweat off his butt."

"What're you going to do about it, Mike?"

"Damn it," I said, "what can I do?"

"Let Pat have it."

"Great. Then word gets around I'm a first-class fink. Harry went to all that trouble to get, this to me. The insurance adjuster bit was supposed to tip me and I'm thick-skulled about it."

Velda handed the slip back to me. "You don't owe this Service any favors."

"Not in the ordinary sense. Even though I nailed him in that robbery and he tried to kill me, he still figures I'm square enough to deal with." I glanced at the note again. "It's a crazy request."

"What you're thinking is even crazier."

"A wild kind of a client."

She gave a little shrug of resignation. "Pat doesn't want you playing with this thing. You're only asking for trouble."

"Hell, all I'm doing is locating a missing person."

"You're rationalizing," she said. "But go ahead, you'll do it anyway. Only don't start tonight, okay?"

"Okay!"

"Okay then," she repeated with an impish grin and came into my arms. On the way she tugged at the belt and I felt wild little fingers crawl up my spine.