Lullaby of Murder (6 page)

Julie didn’t say anything. She couldn’t.

Marks said: “If you’d feel better confirming this call, dial your office when you hang up.”

She did. To gain time and composure—or better, to waken herself from the nightmare.

“Lieutenant Marks speaking. Mrs. Hayes?”

“I’ll get dressed,” Julie said. “Lieutenant, what branch of the police department?”

“Homicide.”

A
SMALL WELL-DRESSED CROWD
had converged on the barricade near the entrance to the
New York Daily
building—gold and silver slippers, patent leather pumps on the rainy pavement. She preferred to look down, as though looking down might diminish her own high visibility. People were speculating on who she was to arrive under police escort. Everybody on the street seemed to know that Tony Alexander had been murdered. A lot of them were exchanging ideas on why.

On the fifteenth floor the office corridor was cordoned off.
Daily
staffers were trying to convince the police of their priorities. The only acknowledged priorities were those of the Crime Scene unit. Julie was conducted directly into the reception room of Hale and Kister, Architects, across the hall from the Alexander office. The entire area was cloudy with cigarette smoke, the air heavy with the smell of chemicals and wet clothes, and what Julie thought might be gunpowder, but she had not had much experience with that.

A soft-spoken black detective who introduced himself as Wally Herring said he was glad to see her and closed the door on the clamor outside. He had the tape recorder ready to roll when Lieutenant Marks arrived. Marks was good-looking, trim, in his early forties, about six feet. His hair was glossy black and cut with care. His eyes met Julie’s as part of a swift non-committal appraisal. He offered his hand, and for a wild minute Julie thought he was going to kiss hers when he lifted it to his nose, and sniffed.

“Yardley’s,” Julie said, but she felt uneasy.

“We may go to more sophisticated equipment later.” He motioned her toward a pair of vinyl upholstered chairs. “Just pick up the volume, Wally.” Herring, at the reception desk, adjusted the machine and started it rolling.

“Are you right-or left-handed, by the way?” Marks asked.

“Right,” Julie said. “Why the tests?” Since she was sure now that she had smelled gunpowder, the true point to her question was why test
her.

Marks understood. “Weren’t you in the office this evening?” he asked blandly.

“In the building, but not the office.”

He looked at her skeptically. “Let’s take things in order.” He nodded to the other detective.

Herring led her through identification, job description, information on the other staff and a run down on office routine.

“You ought to get the office business from Alice Arthur,” Julie said. “She’s much closer to Tony and she’s been on the job a lot longer than I have.”

Marks nodded. “Perhaps you can tell us now what you meant by ‘in the building, but not in the office.’”

“I started to sign in at the night desk. Then I noticed Tony’s name in the book and decided not to come up.”

“Why?”

“It was almost ten o’clock…. No, that wasn’t the reason. I just didn’t want to see him.”

“It was almost ten o’clock,” Marks repeated. “Did you think he might have someone in the office with him?”

“I don’t think that crossed my mind. I was only thinking of myself.”

“So you did not come upstairs?” the detective persisted.

“I did not.”

Marks sighed heavily, giving her the impression that he had other information. “So what
did
you do?”

“I went out and caught the first cab I could and went home.”

“Do you remember the cabbie’s name or number?”

“No, sir. But I think he might remember me—an extra dollar tip to wait until I got inside the building. The phone rang at eleven thirty but I let the answering service pick it up. I woke up alarmed when it rang at one fifteen.”

Marks nodded sympathetically, which put her on guard. Which, in turn, was ridiculous. Why should she be on guard? “What was your purpose in returning to the office in the first place, Mrs. Hayes?”

“I did not return to the office, Lieutenant Marks. I intended to look up some names in what we call the celebrity file.”

“At ten o’clock at night?”

“Yes.” What else could she say?

“When have you been in the office at that hour before?”

“I haven’t been.”

“You just happened to be in the neighborhood?”

“Could I tell you in my own words what happened yesterday?”

“In your own words. Of course.”

Julie recounted her day from Tony’s blast at her the moment she entered the office. The tape rolled silently. Marks made an occasional one word note, but he did not interrupt. When she finished he deferred to his partner. Herring asked for Mary Ryan’s address and that of Murray’s Funeral Home.

“That’s a fair walk all by yourself on a rainy night,” Marks started again.

“I know.”

“How did Phillips die?”

“He’s supposed to have jumped from the George Washington Bridge.”

“Ah, yes.” Then: “Supposed?”

“I believe there was a witness.”

He waited a second or so and then asked: “Is there any association in your mind between the two deaths?”

“I don’t know.”

“That sounds like a qualified yes.”

“To explain I have to go back to Wednesday night when my husband and I were having dinner at a restaurant before he left for Europe.” She told of Jay Phillips’ remarks to her and Jeff. “But I ought to say, Jay’s opinion of Tony Alexander was probably shared by a number of people.”

“A legion of enemies,” Marks suggested.

“A number. It’s inevitable in the business.”

“Who else do you have in mind?”

Oh, Julie, she thought, never volunteer. “I was just speaking generally, Lieutenant.”

“I understand. Have you been able to learn why this Mr. Phillips felt the way he did?”

“No, sir.”

“How did Alexander feel about him?”

“Contemptuous is the first word that comes to mind.”

“We may want to go into this later,” Marks said, “but we must assume for now that Phillips, already dead, is not a suspect in Alexander’s murder, which is the crime under our investigation.”

“Am I a suspect?” Julie asked.

“Well, you’re very much alive,” Marks said with the slightest of smiles. “Let’s talk some more about you. I understand you and your husband were personal friends of the Alexanders…”

Julie turned that over in her mind: she had scarcely thought of Fran, only of herself. “I ought to have thought about Fran,” she said aloud. “We used to be closer friends than we’ve been lately. I haven’t seen her since shortly after I went to work for Tony. He and my husband did meet.” She wondered if it was Fran who had told him of the family friendship.

“Did you know she was in the office this afternoon?”

“No, sir.”

“Any ill will between you and Mrs. Alexander?”

“Not on my part certainly. I’m fond of her. But the longstanding friendship was between Tony and my husband. Jeff started his career working for Tony.”

“Geoffrey Hayes?”

Julie nodded and thought how often she had mentioned him.

“Are you familiar with the box on Alexander’s desk, the one with the slot ink?”

“Yes, sir. We put our copy in it for Tony.”

“Ever try to get anything out of it?”

“No. I don’t think it’s possible without the key.”

“You know the box is bolted to the desk?”

“I know that I’ve never seen it in any other place,” Julie said, wondering now for the first time why it was so carefully secured.

“Ever see inside of it?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Did you know that Alexander kept a loaded revolver in that box?”

“No, sir. I certainly did not know that.”

Marks got to his feet. “Let’s see if we can go over there now. Wally, anything more you want on the tape from Mrs. Hayes?”

“Mrs. Hayes, did you notice any other name besides Mr. Alexander’s in the registry?”

“No. I only noticed Tony’s because it was familiar to me.”

“Yes, ma’am. What was the name of the man you wrote the story about?”

“Morton Butts.”

Marks and Herring exchanged glances. “I’ll check it out,” Herring said.

J
ULIE CAUGHT SIGHT OF
Tim Noble as she moved across the hall with Marks. Herring was waiting for him. Tim looked bereft. Julie wondered why she had no such feeling. She kept wanting to ask, How’s Fran? or How’s Fran holding up? but even as she framed the words they seemed forced and hollow.

In the office technicians were gathering their gear, repacking their kits at the conference table. Tony’s desk was covered with a sheet except for the corner where the copy box had been. There the wood was lighter in color and two holes showed where the bolts had been removed. The floor in the area of the desk and the celebrity bank was marked with masking tape. Chalk circles enclosed dark splotches it took Julie a few seconds to recognize as blood. The shock of reality finally hit home. The room tilted and momentarily went out of focus.

“Are you all right?” Marks asked.

“I’ll make it.”

When he was sure she was not going to pass out, Marks said, “I thought you might like to look up those names you missed out on last night.”

Julie just looked at him.

Marks sighed. “The world is full of s.o.b.s, isn’t it?” He echoed Phillips’ words to a purpose of his own. “But you do see how hard it is to believe that someone would walk that distance last night in a cold rain?”

“Nevertheless, I did,” Julie said.

“Unless the person’s mind was on fire, if I can put it that way. And the rejection of a story doesn’t seem sufficient motive for that.”

“How did you know I came in at all? No name in the book or anything.”

“A security officer recognized you, but having recognized you he lost interest and couldn’t say what direction you took from the desk.”

“Now I understand,” Julie said. “Have you reached Alice Arthur?”

“We have,” Marks said.

“And Mrs. Alexander?”

He almost seemed amused. “And her daughter.”

“I’ve never met her. I don’t even know her name,” Julie said.

“Family friends and never met the daughter?”

“She’s always been away at school or someplace.”

Marks grunted and looked around. The dilapidated leather couch where Tony had claimed to do his best thinking was covered with plastic. A card read: Do not disturb by order of the Police Department. “Would you like to sit down? Perhaps at the table?” The technicians were leaving.

“I’m fine,” Julie said.

“Tell me again now: what’s in those file drawers?” The whole bank was isolated by movable posts.

“They’re profiles of celebrities, or just source material—gossip, rumors, leads…. They’re terribly confidential.”

“And you wouldn’t like to take advantage of access to them now? Who knows when you’ll have the opportunity again?”

He was not going to give up until she yielded information that justified her intended visit to the office. “All right. Lieutenant, I wanted to look up Jay Phillips.”

“Shall we do it together?”

Naturally.

He cautioned her to touch nothing, especially she was not to touch the cards. The drawers had been examined for prints, but he turned the cards with tweezers. The only entry under Phillips was Ellen Duprey Phillips.

“Wait,” Julie said. They both read: “An actress yet. Femme fatale. If you saw her naked you’d say go put some clothes on before you catch cold.”

“Any relation?” Marks asked, deadpan.

“She was Jay’s wife, and she’s been dead for ten years.”

“Having caught cold, no doubt,” the detective said dryly. “Didn’t Alexander ever clean out his files? Ten years—to keep something like that?”

“I think you’d better ask Alice Arthur that question, Lieutenant. I don’t know.”

“Anyone else while we’re here?”

“Morton Butts,” Julie said.

“Yes, of course,” Marks said. “We must look him up.”

“Why?”

He looked up at her from where he was about to tweezer his way through the
b
’s. “You know, Mrs. Hayes, it is customary for the police to ask the questions, not to answer them.”

Julie shrugged.

“Because,” Marks went on, “there is a name scrawled in the registry downstairs that could be Morton Butts.”

“I was wondering whether Tony knew Butts and never let on to me. When I learned at the funeral parlor that Jay Phillips was doing the publicity for this dance marathon, it just didn’t make sense. Phillips was a big time public relations man. Why would he take on a two-bit operation on the fringe of Harlem?”

“And one that interested Tony Alexander so that he sent his number one reporter to cover it. How did he find out about it?”

“From a release out of Phillips’ office?” Julie suggested. “Alice Arthur might be able to tell us that. I can’t really believe he knew Butts. He didn’t mention him by name, and Butts seems like an insignificant little man. It was the dance marathon that interested Tony. He’d won a two hundred dollar prize in one when he was young.”

Marks continued through the cards to the end of the
b
’s. “No Butts,” he said. “But me no buts.”

“It wouldn’t be hard to remove a card if you wanted to,” Julie said.

The detective smiled. He took a piece of chalk from his pocket and marked the drawer. “Who else shall we look up?”

“That’s it.” Alone, she would have looked up Patti Royce. She would also have looked up the star and the understudy in
Little Dorrit
, but she held back, thinking of the headline possibilities of the merest mention of actors in a hit show.

Marks guided her out of the cordoned area. “I’d like to see your article on Butts and the dance, if you don’t mind,” he said.

“So would I,” Julie said.

“You don’t have a copy?”

“Not allowed,” Julie said. “Wasn’t it in his desk?”

“No, Mrs. Hayes. Nor in the waste baskets, nor in the office. Nor anywhere Miss Arthur could think of.”