Very Cold for May

Chapter Fifteen

Prior lit the cigarette he had in his mouth and dropped the lighter into his vest pocket. “Jake, I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said.

“Don’t worry,” Jake said. “I know precisely what I’m doing. You murdered May because you feared the details of your long-ago affair with her might become public knowledge.”

He smiled without humor as color mounted suddenly in Prior’s face.

“Offhand,” Jake said, “I can’t think of a more embarrassing development in the career of a shining knight from the Hampstead Committee.”

Prior stared at Jake unseeingly and then put a hand to his forehead and sat down stiffly, like someone who had received without a warning a piece of shocking news. For an instant he seemed oblivious to everyone and everything in the room. And then he took his hand down and his features were hard, wary, appraising.

Jake glanced at Martin who nodded with finality.

“Yes,” Jake said. “That does it, I think.”

“But go on,” Martin said. “I’d like to hear it all.”

“Okay,” Jake said, and lit a cigarette. He sat on the arm of an overstuffed chair, and took Sheila’s hand. She squeezed his fingers with quick, intimate pressure, and he smiled at her before glancing back to Martin.

“The big thing of course was this: Prior came to me and said he had evidence of Riordan’s wartime peculations — evidence he claimed to have gotten from the Riordan Company’s official books and records. Prior had the details, including the name of the man who okayed the faulty barrels, Nickerson. I’m not certain why Prior did this, but my guess is he hoped to convince me there was no point in defending Riordan. You see, in the first exchange, we had made Prior look very bad, so bad, in fact, that Senator Hampstead had flown in and raised hell with him. Prior wanted to prevent that from happening again; and he thought it would slow me down to know that their case against Riordan was unassailable.

“But getting back to the main point: Prior’s information surprised me. Avery Meed had previously told me that the Riordan Company books were doctored by experts to hide what was going on. And yet Prior hadn’t been sidetracked or fooled. My first thought was that Meed had overestimated the astuteness of his accountants.

“Later that day I told Riordan what I’d learned from Prior. Riordan, of course, must have known instantly that Prior was on the right track; but Riordan didn’t tell me that. He did say, parenthetically, that Nickerson, the government inspector, had died. I imagine Riordan made up his mind then to convert as much of his holdings as he could into cash and clear out. He had just learned that his wife was untrue, and my information told him that Prior would soon be breathing down his neck. And so I’m sure he started planning right then to get out.”

Martin said, “It’s a good guess.”

“But it’s not important,” Jake said, “except as an interesting sidelight on life in America. The important thing was that I decided to pass on to Prior the news that Nickerson had died. I didn’t get hold of Prior — he was leaving the office with Hampstead when I arrived — but I talked to his assistant, Gil Coombs, who is an accountant in charge of digging through the Riordan records.

“But Coombs knew nothing of Prior’s information. The name Nickerson — supposedly gleaned from the Riordan Company records — meant absolutely nothing to him. He had to write it down on a piece of paper to make sure he wouldn’t forget it.

“The significance of that escaped me at the time. But it eventually dawned. Prior couldn’t have gotten his information from the Riordan Company records. If he had, Coombs would have known, too.

“Therefore Prior had lied. Secondly, I started to wonder where he had gotten his information. And that wasn’t too difficult to guess. May Laval’s diary, of course. Prior also lied about another thing. He said he didn’t know Chicago, but as Coombs told me he knew it well enough to act as a guide to its remotest joy spots.”

Jake put out his cigarette, glanced at Prior and then back to Martin. “You can see what that meant? Prior knew May well enough to look through her diary, or else he’d seen it at some time when she wasn’t around. Yet he had said he had never known or heard of May — obviously a flat lie.

“Now there were two questions to answer: One, when had he seen May’s diary; and two, where had he seen it? I started with the where. Well, undoubtedly, in May’s home. That’s where the diary was until Avery Meed got hold of it. It was unlikely that Prior had seen it after Meed got it, because Meed took it home and it was still there when Niccolo killed him. Niccolo had it until he mailed it to me, and the stuff he clipped from it that pertained to Riordan was in his apartment — so, there was just no way for Prior to have seen it after Meed got it. Therefore he saw the diary in May’s apartment some time before Meed arrived.

“That brought me to the when. Well, there was a Mr. X at May’s home early that morning. Gary Noble got there at two o’clock and she told him she was expecting a visitor at three. Now that visitor was gone when Meed arrived — and when Meed arrived May was dead.”

Martin said, “And you decided that Prior was Mr. X?”

“It was inevitable,” Jake said. “It was just a question of arithmetic. Also, Prior had made one more damaging slip. Talking to me he mentioned May’s red pajamas — an item he couldn’t have known about unless he’d been in her home that morning, at the time she was wearing the red Mandarin pajamas. I happen to remember she was wearing the red pajamas because Noble told me she was — but Prior’s knowledge had to, and did, come at first hand. He had been to her home; he had seen the diary some time between three and four, when Meed arrived and found May was dead. That’s when he saw May in the red Mandarin pajamas.”

“That’s why you borrowed Murphy, eh?” Martin said.

“Of course. The minute I saw the clips from the diary I knew I was right. There, in May’s handwriting, was the same story Prior had told, with Nickerson’s name and all the rest of it.

“And I also knew then that Prior had murdered Niccolo. Prior probably realized he’d made a mistake in telling me what he’d learned from May’s diary. Any minute I might wake up and ask myself: How did he know? It was imperative that he get the clips from the diary and destroy them. But he didn’t know where they were. Then Niccolo called him tonight with the hope of selling him the information. Prior told him to go to hell — and then got out there as fast as he could to get the clips and also put Niccolo out of the way. He shot Niccolo and started a search for the clips. And got scared off by the prospect of someone finding him on the scene.”

Jake lit another cigarette and blew out a stream of gray-blue smoke. The patrolman had released Denise and she was rubbing her arms and watching Jake closely. Brian still lay on the floor. Noble looked as if he wanted desperately to speak, but couldn’t think of an opening wedge.

“It occurred to me then,” Jake said, “that the whole story would have to come from May. I began to wonder if there might be another diary — one covering the last day or so of her life. And of course there was. Not a diary, but a dictaphone recording.”

He looked at Prior. “You forgot about that, didn’t you?”

Prior spread his hands and looked at them expressionlessly and then he sighed and rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “It doesn’t matter,” he said thickly.

Jake watched the irrelevant patterns made by the smoke curling from his cigarette. “I heard May’s story tonight,” he said. “The story was about Prior. How May met him in 1944 when he was a clerk for the War Resources Board. She reminisced about their brief and not too exciting affair, and discussed with considerable humor the fact that even then he had considered her a social liability. He couldn’t be seen with her, and he couldn’t introduce her to his friends. May was amused because she delighted in making him feel that he was degrading himself.

“Then Prior swam back into May’s ken, and she was doubly amused, because he’d heard about the book she was going to write, and he was terrified that she would include him in the cast. Prior knew that Senator Hampstead’s reaction would be volcanic if his chief investigator turned up in a Sunday supplement role in an expose of wartime fornication and chicanery. Hampstead would plant his foot squarely in Prior’s posterior and kick him right out of Washington.

“So Prior begged May not to use anything about him. And she agreed. But Prior wasn’t satisfied. He asked to see the diary, to make sure he wasn’t in it, and May said all right. And he had another request. Would May call his assistant, Coombs, and make an appointment with them for the next morning? Prior needed an excuse for knowing May — he knew he’d meet her — and if she made the first overture that would explain his knowing her.

“Well, Prior saw the diary. And he wasn’t in it. And then he realized that that wasn’t enough. If May was going to be involved in the Riordan investigation — as she would have been — their previous relationship would be smoked out. Reporters would have gotten hold of it, and Riordan’s lawyers and press agents would find out about it and use it for all it was worth to discredit Prior. He probably saw himself humiliated, excoriated, and broken because of the scandal.

“That is guesswork of course. I don’t know what the hell he was thinking about. But the fact is he put a sash around her throat and strangled her. Who can say why he did it? One person murders another and later on it is decided it was a crime of passion, of revenge, or lust, or a hundred other things, but the real reason exists probably for one split second while the murder is committed and after that the motivations become blurred and meaningless.”

Jake smiled tiredly. “This recondite philosophizing is tossed in without charge. Getting back to the raw facts, however, Prior, in looking at May’s diary, saw the dope on Riordan, and being efficient, made a note of it for use in his work. That, in the classic parlance, was his first and fatal mistake.”

He glanced to Martin. “That’s the works. It’s all yours now.”

Martin cleared his throat and walked over to Prior and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’d better get ready,” he said. “I’m taking you in.”

Prior was still rubbing his forehead. “All right,” he said in a low voice.

There was a knock at the door and Murphy came in, a portable Dictaphone under his arm. He made a circle of his thumb and forefinger and smiled at Jake. “Right on the dot.”

“I don’t think we’ll need it,” Martin said.

Murphy took an object wrapped in a handkerchief from his pocket and said, “This is for you, Lieutenant. Davis sent it over. He said you were right.”

Martin unwrapped the handkerchief carefully and displayed a nickel-plated .32 revolver. He smiled at Jake. “I knew that Prior and May were close friends for a month or so back in ’43. We got that the way we get damn near everything in police work, by scrounging and hunting around and asking a thousand questions. So when Prior lied about knowing her I got interested and put a tail on him. Prior went out toward Niccolo’s apartment tonight but my man lost him. I told him to get over to Prior’s hotel, too, and take a look around. This is what he found. It’s probably the gun that killed Niccolo.”

Jake took Sheila’s arm and said to Martin, “You don’t need me any more, I’m sure.”

“Just one thing. What about those lipsticked crosses on the mirror, and so forth?”

Jake said, “Prior did that, I would guess, in an attempt to disguise the reason for her murder. He made it look like a Black Hand killing as a pulp writer would imagine it. It should have been an immediate tip-off, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it was corny, unimaginative and routine. If we had looked for someone like that we’d have found Prior.”

“Yeah?” Martin said dubiously, and then pushed Jake lightly on the shoulder. “Thanks, friend. If you need a job come see me.”

Jake grabbed Sheila and started for the door, but Brian Riordan, who had gotten to his feet, stepped in front of him.

“Wait a minute, smart man,” he said. “What was the idea of teeing off on me and Denise?”

Jake studied him calmly and then glanced at Denise who had come to Brian’s side.

“I kind of thought you deserved it,” he said mildly. “You’re a delightful pair of people, you know.”

Denise flushed but Brian forced a mocking smile to his lips. “What have you got to be so damned superior about?” he said.

“Didn’t you know?” Jake smiled. “I’m a noble character. I quit my job because it involved meeting too many people like you. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

He opened the door and put his arm about Sheila’s waist as they walked briskly toward the elevators. “Darling, you were superb!” Sheila said. “I was so damn proud of you.”

“Naturally,” Jake grinned.

A shout from behind caused them to stop; and when they turned they saw Noble hurrying toward them along the corridor, an anxious, pleading expression on his face.

“Jake, old man,” he said. “You can’t run out like this. I need you.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Jake said.

Noble looked as if he might weep. “Jake, you’ve just got a mild attack of morals. It’ll pass over in a day or so. Come in and see me, eh? There’ll be other accounts like Riordan, don’t forget.”

Jake patted Noble on the shoulder. “Thanks for reminding me of that, Gary. When my resolution falters I’ll hold that thought before me and take strength from it.”

The elevator door slid open and Jake stepped inside with Sheila.

“Remember me to the mob,” he said, as the door slid shut in Noble’s stricken face.

As they came through the revolving doors the doorman smiled politely at them and went into the street and began blowing his whistle.

Jake and Sheila stood close together watching the snow that fell like a dotted Swiss curtain between them and the cold night. The only sound was the cheery piping of the doorman’s whistle.

Sheila turned suddenly and put her hands on his shoulders. There were a few snowflakes in her hair and her eyes were shining. “Let’s go home,” she said, “to my apartment. I still make wonderful breakfasts. Is that all right?”

Jake kissed her and said, “It’s the best offer I’ve had today.”

The doorman thanked Jake for the bill he put in his hand; and then he looked at it again, and said, “Thank you, sir,” and closed the cab door behind them reverently.

They drove out Michigan Boulevard and Sheila snuggled close to him.

Something occurred to Jake then and he put his hand carefully into his breast pocket and removed Mike Francesca’s card. He looked at it with a slight smile. Mike wanted a public relations man and would probably be a liberal boss.

He glanced down at Sheila and after a moment or so sighed philosophically and dropped Mike’s card out the window.

Sheila stirred and said, “What was that?”

Jake kissed the top of her head. “Just the dear dead past,” he said.