Murder Your Darlings (19 page)

They rolled the body so that it faced them again.

“That confirms our suspicions,” Church said. “But it brings us no closer to the real killer.”

Dr. Norris said, “You mean that the person who hired Sanderson to kill Mayflower is also the person who then killed Sanderson?”

“In all likelihood,” Church said. “But we shall stick to the facts for now. And the facts show us that we have two murdered bodies in our possession, but no murderer.”

Shortly after this, they said good-bye to Dr. Norris. As he shook Dorothy’s hand, he smiled warmly. “Very pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise,” she said.

His smile widened; his hand lingered in hers. “Hope to see you again soon.”

She smiled sweetly in return. “Over my dead body.”

They got back in the car and drove in silence to the police station. On the pavement in front of the station, Church and O’Rannigan—each in his own way—left them with stern warnings to immediately report any information or any sign of William Dachshund.

Without another word, the policemen turned and entered the building, leaving Dorothy and Benchley at four o’clock in the morning with no means to get home. They stood there a moment, very tired and unsure what to do next.

Benchley finally spoke. “So our peg-legged police captain seems quite baffled.”

“Oh, yes.” She couldn’t resist. “Now he’s really stumped.”

They stood a moment longer.

“Do you think Tony Soma’s is still open?” Benchley said. “I could use a drink after seeing all those dead bodies.”

“Sure,” she said. “What’s another stiff one?”

Chapter 23

But the speakeasy was closed. They banged on the door repeatedly, but no one answered.

“The smart thing to do would be to call it a night,” Dorothy said.

“Well, then?” Benchley said.

“Then, let’s get a cup of coffee.”

They walked up the empty street, hurrying quietly past the dark alley entrance where they had last met the Sandman. They turned the corner to the bright lights of Sixth Avenue. They walked a few blocks farther until they found a place that was open—an all-night greasy spoon.

The bell on the door tinkled as they entered. The small place was empty. Along one wall were a few narrow booths. Along the other wall was a long mirror, fronted by a linoleum counter and a few stools. No one stood behind the counter.

They sat down in the last booth in the rear. A fat cook in a stained white T-shirt came out of a doorway at the back.

“What’ll it be?” he said.

“Coffee?” Benchley asked cautiously.

“Coffee,” the cook said. “Anything else?”

“What do you suggest?” Benchley said politely.

“Special of the day is liver and onions.”

“Just the coffee, I think,” Benchley said. Dorothy nodded in agreement.

“Suit yourself.” The cook turned to a battered metal urn behind the counter and filled two mugs. He came over and plunked the cups on their table.

“Lemme know if you need something else.” Then he disappeared through the doorway to the back.

She glanced down into her mug. The coffee looked watery and smelled burned. She pushed it aside.

“I confess I’m as stumped as Captain Church,” she said. “First of all, why
would
anyone really want to murder silly old Leland Mayflower? Second, if someone did want to kill him, why use a hired gunman? Third, why kill him in broad daylight in a well-known public place—and with a fountain pen, of all things? Lastly, why then kill the man who killed Mayflower?”

“The last one is obvious,” Benchley said. He took a sip of the coffee, winced, then put the cup down with finality. “Whoever killed the Sandman wanted to make sure the Sandman stayed quiet. As a hired gun, the Sandman could very likely be paid or otherwise convinced to talk. But dead men tell no tales.”

“And madmen smell toenails. But do you believe what Church said—”

The bell tinkled softly as the door opened. A man in a long trench coat and a wide-brimmed hat entered and sat down on a stool at the counter. The man didn’t even glance at them.

She continued, speaking in a whisper. “Do you believe what Church said about Woollcott? That Mayflower went behind his back to land that Saber pen contract?”

“I doubt it. But then again, Woollcott might indeed be tight-lipped about Mayflower making such a coup de grâce under his upturned nose. It would bother Woollcott to no end, and he’d know we’d rib him for it.”

The bell rang again, and two more men entered. They sat down in the booth closest to the door.

The fat cook came out from the back and approached the man sitting at the counter. “What’ll it be, bub?”

“Seltzer.”

The cook called to the two men at the booth. “How about you fellas?”

“Give me a seltzer, too.”

“Orange juice,” said the other man.

As he grabbed a seltzer bottle and some glasses, the cook addressed the man sitting at the counter.

“Something to eat?”

“What do you have?”

“How about some nice liver and onions?”

“Nah. Just the seltzer.”

Dorothy and Benchley resumed their conversation as the cook went through the same rigmarole with the two men in the booth, who also turned down the chef’s special.

She said, “I don’t like the way that Captain Church talked about our little pal Mr. Sherwood. We’ll have to warn Sherwood that they’re looking to bring him in for a round of twenty questions.”

“Agreed,” Benchley said. “Constable Orangutan made it sound like Mr. Sherwood physically threatened Bud Battersby on the steps of the station house. It was nothing of the sort.”

“Bob Sherwood wouldn’t lay a hand on Battersby,” she said. “I don’t care how many Germans he killed in the war.”

Her statement hung in the air a moment.

“Besides,” she said quickly, “even if Sherwood is a bloodthirsty killer, as the captain and the detective seem to suggest, then he wouldn’t bother with a hired gun, would he? He’d do the job himself.”

“Now you’re talking sense.”

“But what worries me is Billy Faulkner. If he doesn’t turn up soon, I’ll really start to worry. Then again—”

“Then again, if he does turn up and we don’t inform the police, as they very clearly told us to do, then we’ll all be in some very serious hot water.”

The bell on the door jingled yet again, and another pair of men entered. They didn’t look at the other men, and they didn’t look at Dorothy and Benchley. They didn’t linger in the doorway either, but sat down right away beside the first man at the counter, like schoolchildren late for class.

“Now, what fresh hell is this?” Dorothy whispered. She looked at a grimy electric clock on the wall. It was nearly four-thirty in the morning.

The fat cook waddled along behind the counter. “Evening, boys. Would you like to hear about our special of the day?”

“Just coffee, thanks.”

“Me, too.”

The cook frowned and shuffled once more toward the battered coffee urn.

After observing this short exchange, Benchley turned back around to face Dorothy.

“Popular place all of a sudden,” he murmured. “What do you say we go somewhere a little less crowded, like a downtown bus at rush hour?”

“Now you’re talking sense,” she said. But as she began to slide out of the booth, one of the men looked at her. His expression was ominous. She sensed that the other men were suddenly alert, like a flock of birds ready to take flight.

She stopped. She turned toward the cook behind the counter.

“Can I trouble you for some cream for the coffee?” she said.

The cook handed her a tiny ceramic pitcher filled with thick white cream. She sat back down in the booth, intentionally not looking at the men. She poured the cream in her coffee and stirred it. She lifted it to her lips, but she didn’t drink it.

Over the cup, she whispered, “I’m in no mood for any more questions and arguments, are you?”

Benchley understood. “No, indeed. It’s both too late and too early for any more of that.”

Unobtrusively, she reached into her coat pocket for something. She placed it on the table.

“Can you ask our worthy innkeeper if you could use his telephone?” she said. “Dial that number. Tell the man who answers to come here. Tell him I want to see him now.”

Benchley glanced at the slip of paper. He stood up. The man who had glared at her now stared menacingly at Benchley.

At that moment, the bell tinkled and the door opened. Two more men in long dark coats entered. They halted and looked intently at Benchley. For a long moment, no one moved.

Finally, Benchley timidly turned to the cook. “Excuse me. Can I use your ... your water closet?”

“In the back, on the left,” the cook said.

Benchley went through the doorway in the back.

The two men who had just entered now glanced at Dorothy. They seemed to be sizing her up. Despite their stony faces, she could almost tell what they were thinking: This little lady wouldn’t go anywhere without her gentleman escort, and the escort was too much of a gentleman to leave without her. Slowly, they sat down in the only open seats—in the booth adjoining hers.

The fat cook had finally realized that there was something odd about having a full house at half-past four in the morning. He addressed everyone in the place. “What is this? A trench coat convention or something?”

The men ignored him.

The cook spoke to the two men who had just sat down. “Let me guess. You’ll have a glass of water and a plate of nothing.”

“Root beer.”

“Me, too.”

“Fine,” the cook said, exasperated. “Two root beers, coming up.”

“On second thought,” Dorothy spoke, and her voice sounded high and tremulous to her own ears. The cook and the other men seemed frozen in expectation. “On second thought, give us a couple plates of the liver and onions after all. We’re not going anywhere for a while.”

She sensed that this had a calming—or at least a delaying—effect on the seven menacing men. But it had the opposite effect on the cook. He was ecstatic.

“You will?” He beamed. “Two plates?”

She nodded. He nearly danced his way to the griddle behind the counter and seemed to bop to a silent jitterbug as he warmed it up.

Benchley returned and sat down.

“What did I miss?”

“I ordered us the liver and onions. I hope you have some money.”

“I wouldn’t worry about paying,” he muttered. “If this gang of thugs doesn’t get us—”

“Then the liver and onions will. Very funny. So, were you able to place the call?”

“Yes, but it was a bad connection. I’m not sure if he understood what I was saying, and I didn’t want to raise my voice, of course.”

“Of course,” she said. “So I guess we’ll wait and see.”

Several long minutes ticked by as they waited. The men at the counter and in the booths occasionally shot them dark glances but otherwise did nothing. The men didn’t even talk. Dorothy and Benchley found this unnerving.

Benchley decided to break the silence.

“My niece informs me,” he said loudly, “that a friend of hers at Yale ran off with the track coach.”

“Sounds like she put her heart before the course,” Dorothy obligingly replied. Then she added, “Well, that’s a Yale girl for you. If all those sweet young things were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

One of the men in the next booth tittered, and he clapped his hand to his mouth. She could see his shoulders silently shudder as he tried to keep from laughing.

“That’s one good thing about a girl who goes to college,” Benchley continued. “She has an open mind.”

“Sure,” Dorothy replied, “her mind is so open, the wind whistles through it.”

Now the other men strained to keep from laughing. The strain to keep silent, she knew, made them want to laugh all the harder.

Benchley changed the subject. “So, that was quite a visit we had earlier.”

“What visit?”

“We met a police captain with one leg named Church.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “But what was the name of his other leg?”

Two of the men laughed openly. A few of the others bit their tongues and hissed in exhalation as they tried to hold it in. Benchley surely guessed that they knew of Captain Church. A joke at the policeman’s expense was the final straw.

“Here you are,” the cook said, carrying two plates to their table. “Special of the day.”

Benchley looked at the leathery slice of liver and the pungent, greasy onions. “If this is the special, I’d hate to see the average.”

Dorothy said, “I’d hate to see the sick horse this liver came from.”

“Don’t look a sick horse in the mouth,” Benchley said.

“In the mouth? I can’t even look at it on my plate.”

“Hey,” the cook yelled from behind the counter, “take that back.”

She held up her plate. “Only if you return the favor.”

The men laughed again. Above the laughter, the bell rang once more.

A sharp voice called out, “What’s so damn funny?”

The men went silent immediately. At the door stood a very handsome man. He wore a fur-collared coat and a top hat on his head. He had a walking stick—a knobby, silver-tipped shillelagh—in his hand and an angry scowl on his face. He strode forward and his face brightened, but his voice still held menace.

“I like a funny joke.” The man had a faint Irish brogue, but it was more guttural than lilting. “Tell me, now. What’s so funny?”

The other men didn’t respond. They looked away—at one another, at their shoes, at the clock—they looked anywhere but at the newcomer. The man now grinned maliciously, his ice blue eyes alight, gazing sideways at Dorothy and Benchley as he came closer. This was certainly not who Benchley had called, Dorothy thought.

“You telling jokes, are you? Go on, tell us a joke, then.”