The Case of the Petticoat Murder

Chapter Three

STAN RAYDER came out of the dead girl's apartment just as I reached her door. Draped loosely over his forearm he was carrying what appeared to be a woman's white petticoat; and, as usual, he seemed to be mildy surprised about something.

“What's that you're carrying?” I asked.

“When you get a little older, you'll recognize such things right off, Pete. It's a petticoat.”

“And?”

“I found it in her dresser,” he said, handing it to me. “Take a look at those creases.”

I shook the petticoat out, and it almost immediately bunched itself together again in a number of lengthwise creases.

“I see what you mean,” I said.

He nodded. “I think maybe we've got our murder weapon, Pete. A guy could grab both ends, loop it around a girl's neck, and have himself the sweetest little garrote he could want.”

“And it would be too wide to leave any ruptured blood vessels,” I said.

“That's the clever part.”

“You say you found this in her dresser?”

“It was in a drawer with a bunch of other underclothes. Right on top. None of the other stuff had so much as a wrinkle. That's why I noticed it.”

“Was it bunched up when you found it?”

“No, but I saw the creases. The guy'd spread it out real neat and nice, but when I picked it up it jumped right back into the shape it was in when he had hold of both ends of it.”

“You ask the M.E. what he thought?”

“Sure. He says it could be.”

“You mean he has doubts about it?”

Stan shrugged. “You know how Vince Baretti is. Until he finishes an autopsy, he won't even say whether a DOA is male or female.”

“Well, what does he think was the cause of death?”

“He isn't talking. He was mumbling something about a possible fractured larynx, but that's as far as he'd go.”

In New York City a homicide is never officially a homicide until the Medical Examiner says it is, and the apparent cause of death is never officially so until the Medical Examiner has performed an autopsy and written his report. The reason for this is that even the most obvious cause of death is sometimes not the cause at all. A man thought to have been run over by a car, for instance, may, upon being autopsied, be found to have died of a heart attack just before he was struck. Again, a child thought to have died in a fall down a stairway may have been thrown down the stairs after a fatal beating by a parent. The possibilities are endless, and the Medical Examiner's Office makes no commitments until it has established the actual cause of death beyond any conceivable doubt.

“He say anything about the time limits?” I asked.

“Any time between two and six A.M., he says.”

“That narrows it down a little. I'd figured on an hour or so longer, at both ends.”

“We came pretty close, for cops,” Stan said, reaching out to take the petticoat. “I think we've caught ourselves a tough one, Pete.”

“Why so?”

“I tossed the place real good. This petticoat is just about all I came up with.”

“You mean you didn't find any letters? No address book?”

“No nothing,” Stan said. “She either stashed her stuff somewhere else, or she got herself robbed.”

“Any signs of forcible entry?”

“No, but the M.E. found little tears on the inner lobes of both her ears, just beneath where she'd had them pierced for earrings.”

“She wore earrings all the time,” I said. “The Bowman girl just told me so.”

“Well, she isn't wearing them now. Somebody probably yanked them out of her ears, and none too gently, either.”

“Maybe she walked in and surprised a loid-worker,” I said “It wouldn't be the first time someone walked in on one of those guys and got themselves killed.”

A loid-worker is a thief who enters apartments by positioning a strip of celluloid against the bevel of the bolt, twisting the knob as far he can, and pressing his hip against the door until the celluloid forces the bolt back far enough to clear the hasp. They usually work in the day-time, and almost always make certain the tenant is out, either by phoning his apartment or by loitering around the building until they see him leave.

“There's been a lot of it in the neighborhood, all right,” Stan said. “But why should he go to all the trouble of stringing her up? A guy like that would kill and run; he wouldn't hang around to make a production out of it.”

“Why not?” I said. “If he was stupid enough to think he could pass it off as a suicide, why wouldn't he?”

“All right,” Stan said. “So he was stupid. But that doesn't explain there not being any marks on her. If she'd surprised this guy, and he jumped her, she'd have shown the wear and tear. Nobody'd just stand there and let a man choke her to death.” He paused. “And then again, maybe she didn't come in. Maybe she was already here, dead drunk, and all naked that way. The guy could of come in, seen her like that, and all at once got the idea that he'd quiet her down permanently and then have himself a time.”

I nodded. “Or he might have been helping himself in here, heard her key in the door, and grabbed the petticoat in time to jump behind the door and garrote her the second she stepped inside.”

Stan took out his handkerchief to mop at the sweat on his forehead. “I never saw it fail,” he said. “The more you think about a deal like this, the more ways you see how it might have happened. But what bothers me is that there weren't any letters or papers or anything like that. Hell, there wasn't even so much as a phone bill or a post card from her Aunt Hattie.”

“You look under the paper liners in the drawers?”

“I looked everywhere, Pete; I didn't miss a trick.”

“How about that bathroom out in the hall?”

“From top to bottom, flushbox and all.” He grinned. “And in between times, while I was resting. I took a look at that empty store upstairs. And that's what it is, too: empty. Couple pieces of ballet stuff in the display window and that's all. There's no way anybody could have got in, and no way they could have got to here from there, if they did.”

“You think a woman could have hoisted her up on that pipe, Stan?” I asked.

“A woman? You kidding? A tall girl like that would weigh about a hundred and twenty-five pounds. Another woman might be able to lift her, but hoisting her up to that pipe and holding her there while she tied the rope would be something else. She'd have to hold all that weight with one arm while she tied a knot in the rope with her other hand.” He shook his head. “Uh-uh, Pete.”

I glanced at the end of my cigar, decided I hadn't chewed it too much to be smokable, and struck a match to it.

“How'd you make out with your girl friend down the hail?” Stan asked.

I gave him the gist of my talk with Judy Bowman and then went back to make certain I hadn't missed anything.

When I finished, Stan said, “You think she might know more than she's letting on, Pete?”

“I don't know. That's just one of the little items we'll have to straighten out.”

“What do you figure Nadine was running in there? It doesn't sound like a whorehouse, and it sure doesn't look like any shooting gallery. How do you hunch it, Pete?”

“I don't,” I said. “If she'd stayed in her apartment while her company was there, it'd be different. But she didn't.”

“Well, that's one problem we haven't got,” he said. “All we have to do is talk to that redhead in the antique shop. The one your girl friend saw in the hall.”

“Unless, of course, she was simply making a perfectly normal call of some kind,” I said. “People sometimes do that, you know.”

“That leaves us with Marty and Clifford,” Stan said. “And only one name for each.”

“I'm going to take a walk down to the antique shop,” I said. “While I'm gone, see if the techs have finished with the phone, and then call the squad commander and tell him what we've got. He'll want to take us off the duty roster and so on. And then call the phone company and ask for a list of all the toll calls made on Nadine's phone during the last three months. We're almost certain to get a line on somebody that way; maybe we'll even get a lead to Clifford or Marty.”

“I never saw it otherwise,” Stan said. “You talk to all the women and I do all the dirty work. It just doesn't seem right.”

“That's funny — it seems right to me,” I said. “The techs come up with anything?”

“Not much. They lifted a couple of pretty fair prints off that bottle of whisky Nadine had on her dresser, but they don't hold out much hope for them.”

“Why not?”

“The finger span's too narrow. They figure they're probably Nadine's.”

“And that's all they've got?”

“That's it. Two pretty good fingerprints and about two thousand smears. You know how it is.”

“Well, I'd better head for that antique shop,” I said. “Hold on to the hangrope and petticoat, Stan; we'll want to book them as evidence.”

“Yes, sir, Detective Selby. Was there anything else?”

“Not that I can think of offhand,” I said, turning to leave. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

“Sure you will,” Stan said. “You and all those women.”