The Case of the Petticoat Murder

Chapter Two

THE BOWMAN GIRL'S apartment was not much larger than the one I had just left. It contained a frayed studio couch, a rattan chair with a sagging bottom, an ancient spindle-backed rocking chair with gargoyle hand rests, a three-tier bookcase filled with ceramics, and a professional-looking potter's wheel in the exact center of the floor. At the rear of the room, partly hidden by a Chinese screen plastered with bullfight posters, were a small refrigerator, a sink not much larger than the average wash basin, and a square metal table with a two-burner hot plate at one end and a cut-glass vase of yellow roses at the other. Aside from a faded afghan above the studio couch and an oval throw rug midway between the couch and the rocking chair, the walls and floor were bare.

Judy sat at one end of the couch, high heels close together on the floor, a tiny, very pretty girl with shoulder-length light-brown hair and enormous dark-brown eyes. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse that seemed a little tight for her and a short pink skirt with a high snug waist topped by a wide leather belt. She kept tugging absently at the hem of the skirt, trying to keep it down over her knees, but she wasn't having much luck. When I'd come into the room, she had glanced at me expressionlessly, and then looked away again, as if I hadn't registered at all.

I drew the rocking chair a little closer to the couch and sat down. “My partner tells me you're feeling a little better now,” I said.

She fixed her eyes on a point about two feet to the left of my head and nodded vaguely. “I–I guess so,” she said. “You probably think I made a fool of myself.”

“Not at all,” I said.

“It's just that it was the first time anything like that ever happened to me,” she said. “I mean, it's the first time I ever saw anything like that.”

There was a young-girl breathlessness in her voice that made me wonder whether she might not be even younger than I'd thought. “How old are you, Miss Bowman?” I asked.

“It's Mrs. Bowman,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

Just sort of trying to break the ice a little,” I said, making it friendly.

“I'm eighteen,” she said. “Did you think I was younger?”

“I hadn't really thought about it,” I said.

“Just because I acted the way I did when I found her hanging there, you think I'm a child.” She seemed suddenly on the point of tears. “Well, I'm no child, Mr… What did you say your name was?”

“Selby.”

“I'm no child, Mr. Selby. I finished two years of college by the time I was sixteen. If I hadn't been such an idiot to get married when I did, I'd have a college degree at an age when most girls are just graduating from high school.” Her full lips paled a little, and I realized for the first time that she wore no makeup of any kind. “Just because I'm small, why does everyone have to treat me like a baby?”

I'd seen too many cases of hysteria not to recognize the symptoms. She'd been hysterical once, and now she was on the thin edge again. It could go either way, and the trouble was that I could do nothing about it.

I did all I could do; I sat and waited. It was touch and go for about thirty seconds; then, slowly, the color came back to her lips and her eyes lost their unnatural brightness. There was a thin film of perspiration on her forehead now, and she looked away from me embarrassedly.

“Okay now?” I said.

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Your husband at work, Mrs. Bowman?” I asked.

She frowned. “We don't live together any more.”

“You live alone, then? No roommate?”

“No.”

“You know the girl down the hall pretty well, did you?”

“I knew her. I really didn't know her well.”

“What was her name?”

“Nadine. Nadine Ellison.”

“She married?”

“I don't think so.”

“But you're not sure?”

“If she was married, she never said anything about it.”

“She live with anyone?”

“No.”

I got out my notebook, wrote the dead girl's name at the top of a fresh page, and tried to find a more comfortable position in the rocker. “We'll want to notify her next-of-kin,” I said. “Can you give me the names of any relatives?”

Her forehead lined thoughtfully for a moment. “I don't remember her ever having mentioned any—”

“How long has she lived here?”

“Oh… let's see… about six months, I guess.”

“And you?”

“You mean how long have I been here? Almost a year.”

“You know where Nadine worked?”

“She didn't work anywhere, so far as I know.”

“How about standard of living?” I said. “She live well? Nice clothes and so on?”

“She dressed very well,” Judy said. “I don't know about the rest of it.”

I was relieved to see that talking to me seemed to be helping her get control of herself. I'd feared that it might be the other way around. “I know you've had a very rough experience, Mrs. Bowman,” I said. “I'll make this as fast as I can.”

She tugged the skirt down again, rested a hand on her knee to keep it there, and said nothing.

“Let's get the worst part of it out of the way first,” I said. “Then you won't have to dread it.” I took a cigar from my breast pocket and twisted it around in my fingers without lighting it. “Maybe you'd like to tell me just how you came to find the body.”

She moistened her lips, gazing fixedly at the potter's wheel. “I was on my way out,” she said. “I was going to the grocery store, and when I passed Nadine's door I started to call and ask if she wanted anything from there.” She paused. “We always did that. If one of us was going to the grocery store or the drugstore, we'd see whether the other wanted anything.”

I nodded. “You started to call to her. And then?”

“Then I noticed her door was open,” she said. “About six inches. I called her name, and when she didn't answer, I rapped on the door That made it swing in a little more. And then…” She broke off for a moment. “Then I saw her. For about half a second I thought she was standing on something on the other side of the bed. But then I saw that she…”

“You didn't go inside the apartment?”

“No, I certainly did not,” she said. “The next thing I knew, I was running out to the street to find a policeman.” She raised both hands in a small gesture and the too-short skirt quickly inched up above her knees again. “I couldn't have gone in there, Mr. Selby. I've never been so panic-stricken in my life.”

“That's easy to understand,” I said, listening to the sound of steps and voices at the other end of the hall. There seemed to be half a dozen men arriving, which would indicate that the tech crew was here; and a moment later, I heard the outside door open and close again and the voice of Dr. Vincent Baretti, one of the Assistant Medical Examiners.

Judy had been listening too, picking nervously at the worn welt on the cushion beneath her. “This will be all over the papers, won't it?” she said.

“Not much question about that,” I said. “Girl murders take priority over just about everything.”

“Will they write anything about me?”

“They might.”

“And take my picture?”

“Probably — if they get a chance.”

“I won't let them in!”

“I wish you luck,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Those newspaper cameramen are pretty resourceful.”

“I won't let them in,” she repeated. “Oh, how awful!”

“You know anything about the people in the specialty shop upstairs?” I said, hoping to get her back on the track.

“It went out of business,” she said, glancing apprehensively toward the door. “There hasn't been anyone up there for better than two months now.”

“That so? I thought I saw some things in the window. Leotards and opera hose and ballet slippers — things like that.”

“Maybe they decided they'd been in the sun too long to bother with. Too faded, I mean.”

“I didn't notice any inside stairway. Is there one?”

“No.”

“You say you and Nadine got along pretty well?” I asked.

She stared at me unblinkingly for a long moment, and when she spoke again there had been a subtle change in her voice. “Yes,” she said. “We got along very well.”

“But you wouldn't say you were close friends?”

“We got along very well,” she said again.

“Well enough for her to have told you if she was in trouble of any kind?”

“She never seemed to have any troubles at all. She was always laughing. I never knew a happier girl in my life.”

“She ever mention any threats?”

Judy compressed her lips, shaking her head slowly, almost imperceptibly. “I think I must have known ever since you first started talking,” she said.

“Must have known what, Mrs. Bowman?”

“That Nadine didn't kill herself.”

“Do you know that?”

“Yes,” she said, meeting my eyes directly. “It's not so much your questions as it is the way you ask them.” She took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. “She was murdered, wasn't she?”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “Someone tried to make it look like suicide.”

She smiled, so bitterly that for an instant her face was something less than pretty, almost ugly. “Do you think I did it?”

“No,” I said. “At this stage of the game, we don't think anything at all.”

“Then why didn't you come right out and say she was murdered? Is a girl's being murdered any more horrible than a girl killing herself?”

“I don't know,” I said. “It's pretty rough, either way.”

She glanced worriedly at the door again. “Can you keep them from putting my picture in the papers?” she asked. “They just can't that's all!”

“I'll see what I can do,” I said. “And speaking of pictures, I'd like you to take a look at this one.” I handed her the snapshot Stan had taken from Nadine's mirror. “You know the man sitting beside her?”

“His name is Marty.”

“Marty what?”

“I don't know. I met him only once. He and Nadine were coming in one night just as I was going out. She introduced him to me as Marty.”

I slipped the photo back into my pocket. “He a special friend of hers?”

“I guess you might say he was her boy friend. At least I saw them together quite a lot.”

“Any other boy friends, so far as you know?”

She shook her head. “I never saw her with anyone else.”

“You know where he lives?”

“I don't know a thing about him.”

“Did Nadine entertain very much?”

Judy crossed her legs, but her skirt rode up so high that she quickly uncrossed them again. “Yes and no,” she said. “It was very odd. People came to her apartment at all hours of the day and night. But Nadine was never there when they were.”

“I don't think I quite follow you, Mrs. Bowman.”

“I mean she'd go out and not come back until after they'd left.” she said. “There were an awful lot of them.”

“You know any of these people personally?”

“No; I'd just see or hear them in the hall. Nadine had her own bathroom, but mine is out in the hall, and I'd see them coming or going.”

“And you say she always left them alone in her place?”

“Yes. I'd hear or see people come in; then, just a few minutes later, I'd hear Nadine go out. I knew her walk.” She paused. “They were always in couples. I mean, there was always a man and a woman in there together. Sometimes they'd come in together, and sometimes they'd come in a few minutes apart.”

“And this went on all the time?”

“Yes — day and night. Sometimes one couple would hardly be out the door before Nadine came back and another couple came in.” “Was there ever any commotion in there? Any loud talk?”

“No. Once they were inside, I never heard a sound.”

“Have you ever seen any of these people anywhere else?”

“Only one. A woman. I don't know her name, but she works in the antique shop down at the corner. Pedrick's.”

I ran out a fresh point on my pencil. “What's she look like?”

“Well, she's kind of tall — almost as tall as Nadine. And she has red hair. Her hair isn't a real bright red, though; it's closer to auburn.”

“You have any idea what was going on in there?” I asked as I wrote down the description.

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “No idea at all.”

“Still, isn't it only natural you'd be curious about it?”

“I was — but it wasn't any of my affair. I — well, I got so I just didn't think very much about it.”

“When was the last time you saw this woman? The one from Pedrick's.”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“Late?”

“No, it was about two o'clock.”

“How about this morning?” I said. “Say, between one and eight. Did you hear anything?”

“No. I went to bed early and slept late. I hadn't been up more than an hour or so when I started down to the grocery.” She crossed her legs again, and this time she let the skirt go where it would. “I'd like to help you, Mr. Selby,” she said. “But I really don't know much more about Nadine's personal life than you do. She never talked about people at all. She only talked about things. You know — dresses, music, movies — things like that. All she ever told me about herself was that she used to sing with dance bands.”

“Here in New York?”

“No. I got the impression it was mostly out on the West Coast.”

“She ever say which bands they were?”

“No, she was always a little vague about it. But she did know an awful lot about music and musicians. I didn't know what she was talking about half the time.”

“How'd you first meet her, Mrs. Bowman?”

“In the hall. She'd dropped an earring, and I helped her look for it. It was a little sapphire pendant, and when I found it and handed it to her, I told her how pretty I thought it was. She said the stones were real and that they'd been in her family for years. Then we got to talking about earrings, and I asked her if it had hurt when she had her ears pierced. She said no. and that if I wanted her to, she'd pierce mine for me. I'd been thinking about having it done for a long time, so I said all right, and she sent me down to the drug store for a bottle of peroxide.”

She reached up to touch one of the small gold hoops in her ears. “When I got back, she pierced them for me with a needle and a cork, and then she gave me these little earrings to put in them right away, to keep them from closing up. She said someone had given her the hoops a long time ago, but that she never wore anything but the sapphires and never would. The sapphires matched her eyes, she said, and she didn't care whether they matched all her clothes or not.”

“You mean she wore them all the time?”

“Yes, always. She told me she even wore them to bed. And that's very unusual. I'd never heard of a girl doing that before.”

I put the unlighted cigar in my mouth and sat chewing on the end of it for a while. “Are you sure you've nothing else to tell me, Mrs. Bowman?” I asked. “Something that might seem pretty trivial to you might not seem that way to the police at all.”

She started to say something, then changed her mind and sat completely motionless for fully half a minute, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she apparently tried to search her memory for anything she had forgotten. Finally she made the same small gesture with her hands and shook her head. “I can't think of anything, Mr. Selby,” she said. “I only wish I could.”

I slipped the notebook back into my pocket and got to my feet. “Maybe something will come to you later,” I said as I walked to the door. “Meanwhile—”

“Wait!” she said, straightening up abruptly. “There is something.”

I waited.

“I overheard her talking to someone on the phone,” she said excitedly. “It was the only time I ever heard her raise her voice loud enough for me to hear, and I could tell she was very angry about something. I don't know how long she had been talking, but all at once she raised her voice and started cursing someone. It was just one terrible name after another.” And then she said, “To hell with you, Clifford! I'll make you the sorriest son of a bitch that ever lived!” She paused. “Pardon me; I just wanted you to know exactly what she said.”

“She say anything more?”

“Yes, but that's all I could make out. She was practically shouting when she said it. When she got through she banged the phone down so hard it sounded like someone slamming a screen door.”

“Clifford could be either a first name or a last one,” I said. “You sure she didn't put a 'Mr.' in front of it?”

“I'm almost positive she didn't. I'll never forget how she sounded. The way she said 'Clifford!' you'd have thought it was something nasty she was trying to spit out of her mouth.”

“When did this conversation take place?”

“Day before yesterday, about the middle of the morning.”

I stood with hand on the door knob, not saying anything, while Judy Bowman's expression changed slowly from excitement to perplexity.

“How stupid of me,” she said at last, her voice uncertain. “I can't understand why I didn't think of that right away.”

Neither could I; it was something that, under the circumstances, most people would have recalled immediately.

“We'll see what we can do with it,” I said as I opened the door. “Thanks again, Mrs. Bowman.”

She had been searching my face carefully; now she looked away from me, her dark eyes suddenly troubled.

“Poor Nadine,” she said softly, more to herself than to me. “She was the happiest girl I ever knew.”

There didn't seem to be very much I could say to that. I stepped into the hall and closed the door behind me.