Voyage into Violence (27 page)

“
Dead?
” the switchboard girl said. The veneer had cracked off her voice. “You say somebody's
dead?
”

Jerry did. He said it again.

“Oh-my-God!”
the girl said, as one word. “Who?”

It was to the point, of course; unexpectedly to the point.

“My wife,” Jerry said, “thinks it may be a Miss Towne. She does something on—”

“Towne!”
the girl said.
“Oh-my-God-not-Miss Towne!”

“I'm afraid—” Jerry said.

“But,” the girl said, “she
lives
here. Here in the hotel. I don't—”

“No,” Jerry said, “I don't either. But you'd better call the police.”

II

The police came. A hotel detective came first, and a Mr. Mimms, who was an assistant manager, and dressed for it, and who mopped his forehead with a monogramed handkerchief—and agreed, horror in his voice, that the dead woman was indeed Amanda Towne, and asked, several times, “How did she get here?” which nobody could answer, and, also several times, “Terrible. Simply
terrible
,” with which nobody was inclined to disagree. But the police came; uniformed men first, and then men not in uniform; photographers came, and fingerprint men. Amanda Towne, who had faced many cameras, with an expression for each of them, had no expression whatever now for these cameras which peered down at her, and functioned in the hardest, the least sympathetic, of light. An assistant medical examiner came and, when the pictures had been taken, examined the body briefly and looked at the precinct lieutenant and shrugged.

“Well?” the precinct man said. “So what, doctor?”

“Dead several hours,” the doctor said. “Four. Five maybe.”

“Of what?”

The assistant medical examiner shrugged again, with greater emphasis. He spread his hands as he shrugged.

“Well,” he said. “She wasn't shot. Wasn't stabbed. Wasn't hit over the head. Wasn't strangled.”

“Thanks,” the precinct lieutenant said. “Ate something that disagreed with her?”

“Possibly,” the assistant medical examiner said. “Or had a thrombosis. Or took poison. Or—damned near anything. We'll find out.”

“Guess,” the precinct lieutenant said. “We won't hold it against you, doctor.”

The doctor looked again, looked carefully, at the bluishly livid face; at the lips which had smiled so few hours before. He bent very close to the dead, stiffening face. He looked up.

“All right,” he said, “an autopsy will tell. Nothing else. It's one of the most difficult things to spot, but—” He paused. The precinct lieutenant was patient, rather elaborately patient. “Asphyxia,” the doctor said. “At a guess—just at a guess. I'd say she could have been smothered. With something that didn't bruise.” He looked at the bed. “Like a pillow,” he said.

There were two pillows on the wide bed, on one of which Amanda Towne's head rested. They moved the body, then, and both pillows were spotless white, one indented where the head had been. The precinct lieutenant tilted the lamp between the beds, and turned the pillows over. On the underside of the pillow Amanda Towne's head had rested on there was, faint but clear enough, a smear of red.

“Lipstick,” the precinct lieutenant said, as if that were obvious, as if that were already proved. But nobody argued with him.

The Norths had sat side by side on a sofa in the living room, and a uniformed man had stood in the hallway leading to the door of the suite and looked at them. His expression was dispassionate, not really inimical. Detectives passing in and out—there is much going in and out at such times, all of it ordered, not all of it self-explanatory—looked at the Norths in passing, with judgment reserved, and curiosity only professional. Looked at detachedly, Jerry North thought, we're in something of a spot, with a good deal to explain and no explanations handy. But of course—As soon as Bill gets here, Pam thought, more immediately to the point. If it is murder, of course. She considered that. As I suppose it will be, because it always seems to be and—

It was, they both thought, about time for Bill—for Captain William Weigand, Homicide, Manhattan West, who would know (whatever it looked like) that this was only one more of those things which happened to the Norths, lightning rods for homicide—to show up, to take over. They would sit then no more in Coventry, judgment would no longer be so obviously reserved.

The uniformed man near the door heard something and turned to open the door. Three men came through it, and Sergeant Stein was the first. “Here they are now,” Pam said, softly, not without relief. Another man came through the door. He was not anybody the Norths knew. A third man came—a large man, red of face, a man choleric with authority.

Jerry North could feel his eyes widening, looked at Pam, who looked quickly at him, and saw her eyes wide too. Then they both looked at Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O'Malley, Commanding Detectives, Borough of Manhattan.

And Inspector O'Malley looked at them—looked with rising color. Across the room, Inspector Artemus O'Malley bristled at Pam and Jerry North.

It seemed, for a moment, as if Inspector O'Malley might explode. It was unfortunate that, just then, the cat Martini chose to come out from under the sofa, to see what there was for a cat to see.

O'Malley made a great sound—a sound without words, which was rather like a roar. Martini crouched and hissed, turned, and was a
café-au-lait
streak to the safety of cave the sofa made. She growled a penetrating Siamese growl.

O'Malley steadied himself, but his color did not lessen. It was clear he sought control.

“My God!”
O'Malley said, and his voice filled the room, made the big room shrink, made it shudder.
“You two!”
He paused to gain control.
“And a cat!”
Inspector O'Malley said. But now he screamed. And from beneath the sofa, Martini, who had had enough of all of it, screamed back.

“She hates to be yelled at,” Pam North said, without emphasis, by way of explanation. “All loud noises.”

O'Malley swelled further, which could hardly, Pam thought, be good for him.

“Who's a loud noise?” Inspector O'Malley shouted, and advanced a step, and Jerry North found himself rising carefully from the sofa. The suite had, until then, been filled with little noises—the sounds of people moving, of men talking quietly. Now, momentarily, there was no sound in the two rooms; it was as if Deputy Chief Inspector O'Malley's roaring voice had blown all lesser sounds away. Everything listened.

“It's only,” Pam said, “that cats have very sensitive ears. Because they spread out so, inspector.” She looked up at him. “Like funnels,” she said. “On pivots, of course.”

Inspector O'Malley drew in a massive breath. He exhaled it, seemingly molecule by molecule. His lips parted and were rejoined. And he turned, abruptly, on Detective Sergeant Stein, on the other detective who had entered with him.

“Well,” O'Malley said, “waiting for a streetcar?”

And he turned away and led, massively, toward the bedroom. The nameless detective followed at his heels. Stein, for an instant, hesitated. There was half a smile on his dark, sensitive face. His eyebrows went up slightly. “On another case,” he said. “Out of town.” And then, quickly, he went after Inspector O'Malley who, all too evidently, had taken matters into his own hard hands.

It was clear enough—it was much too clear—what Stein had been talking about. He had been talking about Captain William Weigand, on another case and out of town on it. With Mullins, evidently, which didn't help at all.

“Even the inspector,” Pam said, her voice low, “can't think we—I mean, merely because she came in here to—to die. Or—they must think to get killed. Because—”

She stopped. Jerry was moving his head slowly from side to side.

“Why not?” Jerry said.

Pam blinked her eyes quickly.

“Because—” she said, and then stopped. Jerry waited. After a time, a little heavily, he said, “Precisely.” The uniformed man had moved out of the hall and closer to them. He listened.

“It's chilly in here, isn't it?” Pam North said. Jerry took her nearest hand. And they waited. Sounds came from the bedroom, with O'Malley's rumbling voice as an obbligato. After a time, men began to come from the bedroom—the photographers came, the medical examiner came, some of the precinct men came. But nobody said anything to Pam and Jerry North, although all looked at them. After what seemed a very long time, two men came in with a rolled stretcher and, after a short time, went out with it, no longer rolled, no longer empty. And then, finally, O'Malley came out, with Stein and the other homicide man following him. O'Malley stopped in front of the Norths.

He was no longer especially choleric; his gray eyes, however, did nothing to raise the temperature.

“All right,” he said. “Let's have your story.” He pulled a straight-backed chair forward and sat in it—a massive man, filled with massive disbelief. “Take it down, Williams,” he said, without looking at Williams, and the man who had come in with the inspector and Stein found chair and table, and stenographer's notebook.

“Well,” Pam said, “it's only that Mr. Prentori was coming to paint and paint makes Jerry sick and everything tastes of it. So we—”

“All right, Pam,” Jerry said, quickly, because it appeared to him that O'Malley had begun to swell.

“But,” Pam said, “Bill likes to have everything because who knows what may turn out to be—you're hurting my hand, Jerry.”

“Sorry,” Jerry said, and lessened his grip. “Listen, Inspector O'Malley—we came here to spend a couple of nights because our apartment's being painted. We checked in and—”

“One thing at a time,” O'Malley said. “You looked in the bedroom? I suppose you say she wasn't there?”

“Nobody was there,” Jerry said.

“The boy turned on all the lights,” Pam said. “We couldn't have missed—”

“All right,” O'Malley said. “All right. You knew her, though. Told the people downstairs it was Miss Towne. You want to say you didn't know her?”

“On TV was all,” Pam said. “Actually, I don't think I ever saw her until this afternoon. I couldn't start anything because Mr. Prentori was coming so soon and so I just—it was about the Grandmother of the Year. You can ask anybody.”

“The Grandmother—” O'Malley began and caught himself, with obvious effort. “You,” he said, and pointed at Jerry North, “suppose you just tell what you say happened. You checked in—”

“Changed,” Jerry said. “I'd just come from the office.”

“Yeah,” O'Malley said. “You publish books.” He said it darkly; obscurely, it became an accusation. “So then what?”

They had gone out. Jerry thought a little after seven. They had had dinner.

“Here?”

It had not been there. It had been—

“Left your key at the desk, I suppose,” O'Malley said, in the tone of one who supposes nothing of the kind.

“No,” Jerry said. “Who does?”

“Don't waste so damn much time,” O'Malley said. “I'm not Weigand. Just tell me what happened. What you say happened. You went out and had dinner. Where?”

“Well,” Pam said, “we started for the Algonquin, of course. But we saw this movie—I mean I remembered about the movie—anyway—we decided to have a quick dinner, because at the Algonquin it always takes us a long time, what with one thing and another and it's such a pleasant place to talk, you know and—you're hurting my hand again, Jerry.”

It was, Jerry thought, better her hand than her neck which, from O'Malley's expression, seemed to be in some peril. But, again, he relaxed pressure.

“The Brass Rail,” he said. “We both had roast beef and—”

“For God's sake,” O'Malley said. “What's roast beef got to do with it? Just don't clutter it up so damn much.”

They knew of Inspector O'Malley's idiosyncrasies more from Bill Weigand, who worked under him, as did all Manhattan's detectives, than from previous direct association. Cases in which the Norths were involved were, in O'Malley's mind, cases to be avoided—they were, as Mullins also put it, “screwy” cases. (“The inspector likes things simple,” Bill had told them. “Not that he isn't a damn good cop. It's just that—” Bill had paused, seeking a word. “He doesn't like things cluttered up,” Bill had said, and grinned at them, and said that they couldn't deny they tended to clutter things up. “Not when they aren't cluttered already,” Pam had said, with some indignation.)

“You asked where,” Jerry said. “The Brass Rail. Nobody knows us there so—”

“And,” O'Malley said, “you didn't leave your key at the desk, like you're supposed to. Anybody see you go out? Out of here?”

“Dozens, probably,” Jerry said.

“Anybody you know. Anybody can say, ‘Sure, I saw Mr. and Mrs. North go out of the Breckenridge at twelve minutes after seven, on the nose, and get a cab and—'”

“No,” Jerry said. “And we didn't get a cab. We walked.”

It could not be said that O'Malley snorted. It could not, on the other hand, be said with confidence that he did not snort.

“All right,” O'Malley said, “what you say is you left here a little after seven, and went to dinner at the Brass Rail, although this hotel is full of restaurants—pretty good restaurants from what I hear—and didn't take a cab, so nobody can check that out, and—who'd you see knows you at the Brass Rail?”

“Nobody,” Jerry said. “Listen, inspector, people do things all the time they can't prove—”

“Skip it,” O'Malley said. “You ate this roast beef. So—”

They had gone to a movie. In spite of the earlier dinner, the rather less leisurely atmosphere, they had been late for the movie—gone in, found seats, when the film was, at a guess, about a third run. They named the movie.