Inspector Queen’s Own Case (16 page)

“Call you back? I've called that damn number of yours two dozen times. Don't you ever stay home? What's going on, Dick? Honeymoon—or something—with the Sherwood number?”

“Don't be funny,” the old man said huffily.

“All right, all right. But you've tied my hands, I don't dare buzz Centre Street for information—I'm sitting out here like a bump on a log. Come on, Dick, give!”

He told Abe Pearl about their success in tracking down the mother of the dead baby.

“I'm waiting now for the girl to get back to town, Abe. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get a line on this alleged husband of hers, Dimmesdale. What did you find out about the Humffreys? How is Mrs. Humffrey?”

“I can't get to first base on that. This Duane is closer-mouthed than the FBI. I even got a friend of mine, a New Haven doctor who's sent patients to the Duane sanitarium and knows Duane well, to make some wild heaves from left field, but all Jerry could learn was that they'd called in some big specialist for her.”

“How about Alton Humffrey, Abe? When did he get back from that mysterious fadeout weekend before last?”

“A week ago Sunday night, late. The help must have told him about Dr. Duane's trying frantically to get hold of him, because my information is Humffrey turned right around and drove up to New Haven. He was back Monday morning.”

“That was Monday a week ago? The 22nd?”

“Yeah. The next day—last Tuesday—he closed up the Nair Island house and went into New York for good. The only one left is the gardener, Stallings.”

Richard Queen was silent. Then he said, “Abe, were you able to find out where Humffrey was during his two-day disappearance?”

“Nope. What the devil is this all about, Dick? It's a lot of fog to me.”

“Move over,” the old man chuckled.

But he looked worried as he hung up.

At 4:12
P
.
M
. the phone rang. It was the operator with a call from Washington.

“This is it, Jessie,” Richard Queen shouted. “Hello?”

Two minutes later he hung up.

“The Pentagon says that no such person as Arthur Dimmesdale—either as officer, enlisted man, draftee, or even civilian employe—is carried on the rolls of the United States Army, in Korea or anywhere else.”

“So she did make him up,” Jessie said slowly. “Poor girl.”

“I wish your poor girl would show,” he snapped. “I wish something would show!”

Something did. At 4:25 he answered the doorbell to find himself staring into the hard blue eyes of his old friend, Deputy Chief Inspector Thomas F. Mackey in charge of Manhattan East.

If Inspector Mackey's eyes were not affable, the rest of him was. He remarked how long it had been since his last visit to 87th Street, asked after Ellery, complimented his old friend on his taste in cleaning women (Jessie, hurriedly taking her mops into the study at a glance from her confederate, felt a shiver wiggle up her spine), and did not get down to business until he was offered a drink.

“Thanks, Dick, but I'm on duty,” Inspector Mackey said awkwardly.

The old man grinned. “I'll go quietly, Tom.”

“Don't be a jerk. Look, Dick, you and I can talk frankly. We're up a tree on the Finner homicide. Just a big nothing. We've run down hundreds of leads, mostly from those files of his. His night-spot romances have pretty much washed out. There's something wrong. Not a whisper of anything has come in from the stools. Wherever we turn—in a case that should have been cracked in forty-eight hours—we run up against a blank wall. Dick, are you sure you told us the whole story a week ago Saturday?”

The Queen face got red. “That's a funny question to ask me, Tom.”

His friend's face got red, too. “I know. I've been debating with myself all week should I come up here. The damn thing is, I got the queerest feeling that day that you were holding something back.” He was miserable, but his glance did not waver. “Were you, Dick?”

“I'm not going to answer that, Tom!”

They stared at each other. For a moment the old man thought his equivocation had been unsuccessful. But Chief Deputy Inspector Mackey misread the emotion in his friend's voice.

“I don't blame you. It was a rotten question to ask a man who's given the best part of his life to the City of New York. Forget I ever asked it, Dick. And now, before I shove off, I think I'll take that hooker!”

When Inspector Mackey had left, Jessie came out of the study. She went over to Richard Queen, slumped in his big armchair, and put her hand on his shoulder.

“You couldn't do anything else, Richard.”

“Jessie, I feel like a skunk.” His hand crept up and tightened over hers. “And yet I can't turn this over to the Department. The minute I do I'm through with the case. It's our case, Jessie, yours and mine. Nobody else wanted it …”

“Yes, Richard,” Jessie murmured.

They had had dinner and were in the living room watching television when the phone rang again. Jessie snapped off the set and glanced at her watch as the old man hurried into the study. It was almost 8:30.

“Inspector? Johnny Kripps.”

“Johnny. Did Giffin turn up to help you take over from Angelo and Murphy?”

“Hughie's watching the front right now. I'm phoning from a drugstore on Broadway. She's back, Inspector.”

“Ah,” the old man said. “You're sure she's our gal, Johnny?”

“She pulled up in a cab full of luggage about ten minutes ago, alone. Her bags have the name Connie Coy on them. And Giffin overheard the night man in the lobby call her Mrs. Dimmesdale. What do we do?”

Richard Queen said quietly, “Keep your eyes open and stay under cover. I'm on my way.”

They walked over; it was only a few blocks. The night was hot and humid, but Inspector Queen set a quick pace. There was no sign of George Weirhauser.

“I wonder why,” Jessie panted. Her girdle was killing her, but she would have died rather than ask him to slow down.

“Either his job is done or our staying in all day's fooled him.” He shrugged. “It doesn't matter.”

The curbs on both sides of 88th Street were packed with cars. How he knew Jessie could not imagine, but he stopped suddenly near one of the parked cars to light a cigaret, and a man's voice from inside the car said, “Okay, Inspector.”

“Where's Giffin staked out, Johnny?”

“Up there on the floor somewhere. If you don't want the lobby man to see you, there's a side service entrance. This side of the building. Delivery elevator is self-service.”

“You're clairvoyant, Johnny.”

Kripps laughed. Jessie wondered what he looked like.

The Inspector strolled her slowly toward a shadowed area near the service entrance. The entrance had a weak caged bulb over it. He stopped her in the shadow. A car was cruising by, and a portly man in a Hawaiian shirt was trudging toward them from West End Avenue followed by a woman who was walking as if her feet hurt. The woman was jabbering a steady stream; the man kept wading on, deaf. He turned into the apartment house entrance and the woman went in after him.

“Now, Jessie.”

Jessie found herself stumbling down three steps into a sort of tunnel. Ahead was darkness. He took her hand and led the way, trailing his other hand along the inner wall.

“Here's the door.”

They entered a cluttered, sour-smelling basement, dimly lit. There was a trash can in the elevator.

The elevator went up creaking and groaning. It seemed to Jessie it was making enough noise to be heard over on Broadway. But the old man merely watched the floors move by.

“Why are we sneaking in this way, Richard?”

“We're not exactly in a position to operate openly. What the lobby man can't see won't hurt us.” He sounded grim.

The elevator stopped, swaying. He opened the door and they stepped into a dingy rear hall. He shut the elevator door noiselessly.

There were four apartment doors, lettered A, B, C and D. He went over to the fire stairway to look down into the well. Then he moved over to the stairs leading up, and peered. They were on the top floor. This flight undoubtedly led to the roof exit, but the whole upper part of the staircase was in darkness.

“Giffin?”

“Yeah, Inspector.” The ex-detective's voice sounded a little surprised. “I thought with Kripps covering the street, I'd cover the back stairs.”

“Okay.”

He went to the door lettered C and put his forefinger on the bell button. C was one of the two rear apartments.

Jessie held her breath. Little Michael's mother at last …

A latch chain rattled. The door opened a couple of inches.

“Who is it?”

She had a deep, slightly hoarse voice. Jessie caught a glint of gold hair, a slash of lipstick.

“Miss Connie Coy?”

“Yes?”

Richard Queen held his shield-case up for her inspection. “May we come in?”

“Police?”

Just the merest tremble of fear, Jessie thought, in that sugared voice. One large hazel eye, heavily mascaraed, shot a glance in Jessie's direction.

“What do you want with me?” She made no move to open the door.

“Let us in, please, Miss Coy,” he said quietly. “I don't think you want the neighbors in on this.”

She undid the latch chain then, stepping back with the door fast.

Connie Coy was clutching a green terry cloth housecoat about her, glancing from Richard Queen to Jessie and back again. Jessie saw now that her gold hair had greenish roots and that the makeup did not entirely conceal tired, biting lines. She was wearing dark green sandals. Her toenails were painted gold.

The old man shut the door and hooked the chain back.

“Sorry to barge in on you this way, Miss Coy, but it couldn't be helped. I'm Inspector Queen, this is Miss Sherwood. Where can we talk?”

“But what's this all about?” She was openly frightened now.

“Is that your living room in there?”

He went swiftly through the neat little kitchen into a big studio room.

“Don't be afraid, Miss Coy,” Jessie said in her soft voice.

The girl gave her a puzzled look. Then she laughed and poked at her hair. “I've never had a visit from the police before,” she said. “Are you a policewoman?”

“I'm a trained nurse.”

She seemed rooted to the floor. But then she said, “Won't you come in?” and stepped aside.

They went into the studio room. Richard Queen was in the bedroom, looking into the bathroom. Open suitcases were strewn about the bed and the floor. Evening gowns lay everywhere.

“What are you looking for, Inspector?” the girl asked nervously.

“Just making sure we're alone.” He came back, frowning.

It was a gay room in a theatrical way. The furniture was nondescript modern, but the upholstery was brightly colored and there was a striking batik throw over the back of the sofa. An ivory-and-gilt Steinway stood to one side of a big studio window. She had thrown the window wide open to the humid night, and through it Jessie could see the starlit roofline of an apartment building on the other side of a narrow inner court, no more than twenty feet away. The window hangings were of dramatic red velvet. The walls were covered with inscribed theatrical photographs, mostly of jazz musicians, but there were several Degas reproductions of ballet dancers, an airy Dufy, and two small Japanese prints of subtle coloring that looked old. From an Egyptian copper vase on the mantelpiece over the false fireplace drooped some dead red roses. Half of one wall held floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books and recordings. There was a hi-fi player, a television set, a tiny bar.

“I'd offer you folks a drink,” Connie Coy said with a strained smile, “but I'm out of everything and I only just got back tonight from out of town. Please sit down.”

Jessie seated herself on the sofa near an iron-and-glass end table. A book lay open on the table. She wondered what it was.

The girl sat down in a wing chair, stiffly.

“Well?” she said. “I'm ready.”

Inspector Queen went over to the fireplace, fingered a dry rose petal that lay on the brass knob of the andiron, suddenly whirled.

“Miss Coy, when did you see your baby last?”

The brutality of his question struck Jessie like a blow. She gave him an angry glance, but he was looking at the blonde girl. Jessie looked at her, too.

She was pale, but under control. She's been expecting it, Jessie thought. She took it better than I did.

“Baby? I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Miss Coy.” His voice was perfectly flat. “Seven or eight months ago you leased this apartment under the name of Mrs. Arthur Dimmesdale. There is no Arthur Dimmesdale. Some time between then and May of this year you were approached by a lawyer named Finner. You were pregnant, and he offered to see you through in safety to yourself providing you turned the baby over to him. He was in the adoption business, he told you, and he would see to it that your child was placed in a very good home with foster-parents who couldn't have children of their own and wanted to adopt one. All expenses would be paid; you would receive a large sum of money; Finner would take care of all the ‘legal' details. You were desperate, and you agreed. Finner sent you to a reputable gynecologist who knew you only as ‘Mrs. Willis P. Exeter,' a name Finner provided, and when your time came you entered the hospital Finner designated under that name. The date was May 26th. On May 27th you gave birth to a male child. He weighed six pounds thirteen ounces, was nineteen centimeters long, had blue eyes and blond hair. On June 3rd you and your baby were discharged from the hospital and you turned him over to Finner. He paid you the promised fee and took the baby away. Are you ready to answer my questions now?”

“I threw the money in his fat face!”

The girl was trembling violently. She buried her face in her hands and began to cry.