Homicide Trinity (21 page)

The other four current roomers had all been there longer—one of them, Raymond Dell, more than three years. In the thirties Dell had always had enough work to lunch at Sardi’s twice a week, and in the forties he had done fairly well in Hollywood, but now he was down to a few television crumbs.

Noel Farris, a year and a half. A year ago he had been in a play which had folded in four days, and this season in one which had lasted two weeks.

Paul Hannah, four months. A kid in his early twenties with no Broadway record. He was rehearsing in a show that was to open next month at an off-Broadway theater, the Mushroom.

Martha Kirk, eleven months. Twenty years old. Was in
Short and Sweet
for a year. Now studying at the Eastern Ballet Studio.

That was what I had got when the taxi rolled to the curb in 47th Street. Tammy Baxter had said the house was a dump, and it was, like hundreds of others in that part of town. The wind whirled some snow into the vestibule when I pushed the door open. Hattie used her key on the inner door and we entered. I had told her that I would first take a look at the bookshelf, to see if the dust situation could furnish any information as to how long the package had been there, but as we were taking off our coats in the hall a voice came booming down the stairs.

“Is that you, Hattie?”

The owner of the voice was following it down. He was a tall thin guy with a marvelous mane of wavy white hair, in an ancient blue dressing gown with spots on it.
He was rumbling, “Where on earth have you been, or above it or beneath? Without you this house is a sepulcher! There are no oranges.” He noticed me. “How do you do, sir.”

“Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Dell,” Hattie said. I started to offer a hand, but he was bowing, so I bowed instead. A voice sounded behind me. “This way for oranges, Ray! I got some. Good morning, Hattie—I mean good afternoon.”

Raymond Dell headed for the rear of the hall, where a girl was standing in a doorway, and when Hattie followed him I tagged along, on into the kitchen. On a big linoleum-topped table in the center a large brass bowl was piled high with oranges, and by the time I entered Dell had taken one and started to peel it. There was a smell of coffee.

“Miss Kirk, Mr. Goodwin,” Hattie said.

Martha Kirk barely looked her twenty. She was ornamental both above the neck and below, with matching dimples. She gave me a glance and a nod, and asked Hattie, “Do you know where Tammy is? Two phone calls. A man, no name.”

Hattie said she didn’t know. Dell looked up from his orange to rumble at me, “You’re a civilian, Mr. Goodwin?”

It was a well-put question, since if I wasn’t in show business my reply would show whether I was close enough to it to know that stage people call outsiders civilians. But Hattie replied for me.

“You watch your tongue with Mr. Goodwin,” she told him. “He thinks he’s going to do a piece for a magazine about me and my house, and that’s why he’s here. We’re all going to be famous. There’ll be a picture of us with Carol Jasper. She lived here nearly a year.”

“What magazine?” Dell demanded. Martha Kirk skipped around the table to curtsy to me. “What would you like?” she asked. “An omelet of larks’ eggs? With truffles?”

I was a little sorry I had suggested that explanation of me to Hattie. It would be a shame to disappoint a girl
who could curtsy like that. “You’d better save it,” I said. “This egg not only hasn’t hatched, it’s not even laid yet.”

Raymond Dell was boring holes through me with deep-set blue-gray eyes. “I wouldn’t have my picture taken with Carol Jasper,” he said, “for all the gold of Ormus and of Ind.”

“You can squat down behind,” Hattie said. “Come on Mr. Goodwin.” She moved. “He wants to see the house. I hope the beds are made.”

I said I’d see them later and followed her out. Halfway down the hall she asked, not lowering her voice, “How was that? All right?”

“Fine,” I said, loud enough to carry back. “They’re interested and that’ll help.”

She stopped at a door on the left toward the front, opened it, and went in. I followed and closed the door. The window blinds were down and it was almost as dark as night, but she flipped a wall switch and light came from a cluster of bulbs in the ceiling. I glanced around. A sofa, dark red plush or velvet, chairs to match; a fireplace with a marble mantel; worn and faded carpet; an upright piano against the wall on the right, and beyond the piano shelves of books.

“Here,” Hattie said, and went to the shelves. “I put the books back like they were.” As I moved to join her the corner of my eye caught something, and I turned my head; and, seeing it, I turned more and then froze. It was Tammy Baxter, flat on the floor behind the sofa, staring up at the ceiling; and, as if to show her where to stare, the handle of a knife at right angles to her chest was pointing straight at the cluster of lights.

T
o show you how freaky a human mind can be, as if you didn’t already know, the thought that popped into mine was that Hattie had been right, a counterfeiter would have more clothes; and what brought it was the fact that Tammy’s skirt was up nearly to her waist, exposing her legs. That took the first tenth of a second. The next thought was also of Hattie, just as freaky but for men only, based on the strictly male notion that women aren’t tough enough to take the sight of a corpse. I turned, and she was there at my elbow, staring down at it.

“That’s a knife,” she said.

That plain statement of fact brought my mind to. I went and squatted, lifted Tammy’s hand, and pressed hard on the thumbnail. When I released the pressure it stayed white. The dead hand flopped back to the carpet and I stood up. I glanced at my wrist; twelve minutes past one. “You’ll see the cops now,” I said. “If you don’t want—Hands off! Don’t touch her!”

“I won’t,” she said, and didn’t. She only touched the skirt, the hem, to pull it down, but it was bunched underneath and would come only to the knees.

“It’s your house,” I said, “so you ought to phone, but I will if you prefer.”

“Phone for a cop?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have to?”

“Certainly.”

She went to a chair and sat. “This is the way it goes,” she said. “It always has. When I want to think I can’t. But you can, Buster, that’s your business. You ought to be able to think of something better than calling a cop.”

“I’m afraid I can’t, Hattie.” I stopped. I hadn’t realized she had become Hattie to me until I heard it come out. I went on, “But first a couple of questions, in case some thinking is called for later. When you came back here this morning to sew on the button did you see Tammy?”

“No.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“No.”

“The car that came up on the sidewalk and hit you. Did you see the driver?”

“No, how could I? It came from behind.”

“The man and woman who helped you up, and the other man. Did they see the driver?”

“No, I asked them. They said they didn’t. I can’t think about that, I’m thinking about this. We’ll go up to my room. Ray and Martha don’t know we came in here. We’ll go up to my room and you’ll think of something.”

“I can’t think her alive and I can’t think her body somewhere else. If you mean we forget we came in and saw it, then what? You said nobody comes in here much. Do you phone or do I?”

Her mouth worked. “You’re no good, Buster. I wish I hadn’t sewed that button on.” She got to her feet, none too steady. “I’m going upstairs, and I’m not going to see any cops.” She moved, but not toward the door. She stood and looked down at the corpse, and said, “It’s not your fault, Tammy. Your name won’t ever be on a marquee now.” She moved again, stopped at the door to say, “The phone’s in the hall,” and went.

I looked around. There was no sign of a struggle. There was nothing to be seen that might not have belonged to the room—Tammy’s handbag, for instance. I went and squatted by her for a look at the knife handle; it was plain black wood, four inches long, the kind for a large kitchen knife. It was clear in to the handle and there was no blood. I got erect and went to the hall, where I had noticed the phone on a stand under the stairs. Voices were coming from the kitchen. That it wasn’t a coin phone, out in the open in that house, was
worthy of remark; either Hattie’s roomers could be trusted not to take liberties, or she could afford not to care if they did. Only now, evidently, one of them had taken the liberty of sticking a knife in Tammy Baxter. I dialed the number I knew best.

“Yes?”

I have tried to persuade Wolfe that that is no way to answer the phone, with no success. “Me,” I said. “Calling from Miss Annis’s house to report a complication. We went in the parlor to look at the bookshelf and found Tammy Baxter on the floor with a knife in her chest. The girl that came this morning to ask if Miss Annis had been there and that the T-man asked about. Miss Annis won’t call the police, so I have to. I am keeping my voice low because this phone is in the hall and there are people in the kitchen with the door open, I have my eye on it. I need instructions. You told Miss Annis you would return her property to her, and you like to do what you say you’ll do. So when I answer questions what do I save?”

“Again,” he growled.

“Again what?”

“Again you. Your talent for dancing merrily into a bog is extraordinary. Why the deuce should you save anything? Save for what?”

“I’m not dancing and I’m not merry. You sent me here. In one minute, possibly two, it would occur to you as it has to me that it would be a nuisance to have to explain why we postponed reporting that counterfeit money. I could omit the detail that I inspected it and found it was counterfeit. If and when the question is put I could deny it.”

“Pfui. That woman.”

“It would be two against one, if it came to that, but I don’t think it will. She says she’s not going to see any cops and has gone to her room. Of course she’ll see them, or they’ll see her, but I doubt if they’ll hear much. Her attitude toward cops is drastic. One will get you ten that she won’t even tell them where she went this morning. But if you would prefer to open the bag—”

“I would prefer to obliterate the entire episode. Confound it. Very well. Omit that detail.”

“Right. I’ll be home when I get there.”

I cradled the phone and stood and frowned at it. A citizen finding a dead body is supposed to report it at once, and in addition to being a citizen I was a licensed private detective, but another five minutes wouldn’t hang me. Raymond Dell’s boom was still coming from the kitchen. Hattie had said her room was the second floor front. I went to the stairs, mounted a flight, turned right in the upper hall, and tapped on a door.

Her voice came. “Who is it?”

“Goodwin. Buster to you.”

“What do you want? Are you alone?”

“I’m alone and I want to ask you something.”

The sound of footsteps, then of a sliding bolt that needed oiling, and the door opened. I entered and she closed the door and bolted it. “They haven’t come yet,” I said. “I phoned Mr. Wolfe to suggest that it would simplify matters if we leave out one item, that we knew the bills were counterfeit. Including you. That hadn’t occurred to us. If you admit you knew or suspected they were phony, it will be a lot more unpleasant. So I thought I’d—”

“Who would I admit it to?”

“The cops. Naturally.”

“I’m not going to admit anything to the cops. I’m not going to see any cops.”

“Good for you.” There was no point in telling her how wrong she was. “If you change your mind, remember that we didn’t know the money was counterfeit. I’m sorry I’m no good.”

I went, shutting the door, and as I headed for the stairs I heard the bolt slide home. In the lower hall voices still came from the kitchen. I went to the phone, dialed Watkins 9-8241, got it, gave my name, asked for Sergeant Stebbins, and after a short wait had him.

“Goodwin? I’m busy.”

“You’re going to be busier. I thought it would save time to bypass headquarters. I’m calling from the house
of Miss Hattie Annis, Six-twenty-eight West Forty-seventh Street. There’s a dead body here in the parlor—a woman with a knife in her chest. DOA—that is,
my
arrival. I’m leaving to get a bite of lunch.”

“You are like hell. You again. I needed this. This was all I needed.” He pronounced a word which it is a misdemeanor to use on the telephone. “You’re staying there, and you’re keeping your hands off. Of course you discovered it.”

“Not of course. Just I discovered it.”

He pronounced another contraband word. “Repeat that address.”

I repeated it. The connection went. As I hung up a notion struck me. Hattie wasn’t there to call me a bootlicker and flunky and toady, and it wouldn’t hurt to be polite; and besides, it would be interesting and instructive to see how Stebbins would react to outside authority sticking a finger in his pie. So I got the phone book from the stand, found the number, and dialed it.

A man’s voice answered. “Rector two, nine one hundred.”

Being discreet. Liking it plain, I asked, “Secret Service Division?”

“Yes.”

“I would like to speak to Mr. Albert Leach.”

“Mr. Leach isn’t in at the moment. Who is this, please?”

My reply was delayed because my attention was diverted. The front door had opened and a man had entered; and, hearing my voice, he had approached for a look. I looked back. He was young and handsome—Broadway handsome. The phone repeated, “Who is this, please?”

“My name is Archie Goodwin. I have a message for Mr. Leach. He asked me this morning about a woman named Tammy Baxter. Tell him that Miss Baxter is dead. Murdered. Her body was discovered in the parlor of the house where she lived on Forty-seventh Street. I have just notified the police. I thought Mr. Leach—”

I dropped the phone on the cradle, moved, and called, “Hey you! Hold it!”

The handsome young man, halfway to the parlor door, stopped and wheeled; and at the rear of the hall there were steps and Martha Kirk’s voice, and she came trotting, the trot of a dancer, with Raymond Dell striding at her heels. As I crossed the hall a buzzer sounded in the kitchen, and I went and opened the door. It was two harness bulls. They stepped in and the one in front spoke. “Are you Archie Goodwin?”