Masters Of Noir Vol Iii Part 16

There was no blood in the store, anywhere-floors, walls, furniture or stock-according to the pathologist. Jordan could see in the reports the mounting fury of Eglin as he sent his men back to search again and again. No blood-and without it no proof, beyond that single drop, that Garfield had been killed in the store and his body carried out to the alley.

Jordan turned to the question and answer statements. Crider first. They had found him in bed at two that morning. His statement was taken at three. He was cool and seemingly frank. No, he owned no gun. Yes, he was there that night. He made it a habit to drop around to his stores just before closing time. Bart Berkey was just shutting up shop when Crider reached Store No. 1. Crider checked the cash register. They turned off the lights and said good night at the door. That was all. A quiet night. He didn't see Bob Garfield. Or anyone else.

Those five telephones were his bookie business-he wouldn't try to kid Inspector Eglin. His clerks took horse bets at every store except No. 1. They pa.s.sed them along by phone to the back room of Store No. 1. James Lombard took them there. No, Lombard was not there that night. He left at seven.

Pay ice to Bob Garfield? Inspector Eglin should know better than that. The clerks were paid to take their chances. Sometimes they got knocked over by the department. Look at the arrest records; they prove it. The business wasn't worth protection money. Garfield was clean, and a friend. Was Garfield interested in Elsa Berkey? Maybe. Who wouldn't be? She was a good-looking red-head. Me? No, thanks-a smart man never fools around with his own women employees.

That was the meat of Crider's first statement. Underneath it was another, and another. And yet another. Eglin wouldn't give up. But Crider's fourth story didn't vary from his first.

Next, Elsa Berkey. She was more terse than Crider. She volunteered nothing. She answered carefully. Started working for Crider two years ago. Before that a singer in a night club. That throaty voice should do all right with a blues song. Six months ago she got Bart a job with Crider. She opened Store No. 1 in the morning, Bart closed it at night.

She knew Bob Garfield. She had gone out with him. How many times? Three, perhaps four. They were just friends. Did he mention the telephones in the back room? No. Positive, Miss Berkey? Of course. No, there was nothing between her and Crider. There never had been. He was her employer.

Come now, Miss Berkey. The facts are against you. You admit you got Bart his job. Bart isn't what you'd call good material for a cigar-store clerk. Crider would never have hired him if there hadn't been something in it for Crider.

There was a bargain, but not that kind. A pretty girl helped business in a store where the customers were men. She knew hundreds of them by their first names. They bought there because of her. Bart had a good mind. But he was-well, he lived in a sh.e.l.l. She knew she had to make him break out of it. She had to make him meet people, deal with people. She asked Crider to put him to work. Crider refused. She quit. She thought that would make Crider give Bart a job. It did. Bart got the job on the condition that she come back.

Jordan stopped reading. She used her s.e.x, all right, to get Bart a job. But it was the way she said, not the way Eglin said. It was just like last night, he thought, when she used her s.e.x on me in an attempt to protect Bart. Everything she does is for Bart.

Then he knew what had happened to him. He had started believing her. Why? Maybe it was the cool, honest way she used her s.e.x, without pretense or hypocrisy. He went back to the file, reading rapidly. There wasn't much more. She was in bed when Bart came home that night. She heard him but she did not look at the clock.

Ban Berkey's fear came through the very first words of his first statement. The stenographer taking it down had asked him to speak louder. Eglin had been rea.s.suring. Eglin told him he had nothing to fear.

Ban was telling Crider's story-the exact same story. Eglin had turned harsh. A fourth statement had been taken that night. A fifth at nine the next morning. Eglin was pitiless. A sixth and last had been taken yesterday. The time was just one hour before the old relief, Dennehy, had walked out into the intersection at Berkeley and Trimount and told Jordan he was wanted at the station.

As Jordan dug into this last statement the cold words took on tension and the scene came alive. He could see Eglin leaning forward, pinning the frightened Bart to the chair with those eyes.

Q: Your sister's no good, Berkey. She messes up men. You going to let her go on getting you in trouble all your life?

A: You've got no right to say that.

Q: No right. Then let's say she's not. Let's say she is a good girl but she was just having a little fun. But it got a man killed. Do you go to church, Bart?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Do you think a man has a right to lie about murder even to protect his own sister?

A: It wasn't ... She didn't, Mr. Eglin. Oh, why don't you leave me alone!

Q: I'll leave you alone when I get the truth. Let's start all over. You were there. Bob Garfield was there- A: No.

Q: Bob Garfield was there. And your sister was there. Garfield and your sister were in that back room together. Crider came in and caught 'em in a clinch and shot Garfield.

A: Elsa wasn't there!

Q: But Garfield was there, wasn't he?

A: I didn't say that!

Q: All right, Bart. Let's leave your sister out of it. Let's forget your sister. Let's say she wasn't there. That takes away your only excuse for not telling the truth.

A: I don't know what you mean.

Q: I mean I'm giving you one last chance to tell the truth. I'm putting it up to you in a way that you don't have a reason in the world for not coming clean. And if you don't I'm going to send you to the penitentiary as an accessory when I do get the facts, so help me! Now then. You were there. Garfield was there. A woman was there- A: No!

Q: A woman was there. You don't have to give her a name, Bart. Elsa was home in bed, remember. A woman was there. Let's say for now she was a woman you never saw before and couldn't recognize in court- A: No! I can't! I can't!

Q: The truth, Bart. Quickly now, the truth. A woman was there- A: I can't! You don't know what it would mean. Elsa! I want my sister!

Jordan closed the file. A cold lump seemed to be revolving slowly in his stomach. A woman had been there.

He walked in and laid the file on Eglin's desk. The chief inspector looked up.

"Gloria Hume," said Eglin. "Here's the dope on her. Clerk in Crider's store at Avery and Mason. Been with him a year. Works from two in the afternoon till ten-thirty. Lives in an apartment five blocks from the Berkey's. What do you make of it?"

"Avery and Mason. That's a block south and a block east of the No. 1 store. Was it on Garfield's beat?"

"It was."

"Then she was the one." Eagerness filled Jordan. The cold lump began to dissolve. "She was at Store No. 1 that night. She got Garfield killed."

"Possible. But not likely."

"Why not? How often has Crider been seen going in her apartment? Has he bought her any jewelry and stuff? Has she ever been seen with Garfield?"

"Are you beginning to fancy yourself a detective, Jordan? We'll check those things as a matter of routine ... No. You've let yourself forget the main fact. Bart wouldn't lie if his sister was in the clear."

"Maybe he didn't lie. How about last night? Crider sent Gloria up there as sure as you sent me."

"Probably. Could be he just wanted to know if the Berkeys were coming back to work. So he sent someone who knew them. Why are you suddenly so interested in clearing Elsa?"

"I just feel that you're dead wrong, Inspector," said Jordan. He spoke slowly. It was almost as though he were talking to himself, arriving at a final judgment he had long delayed. "She's no better than she ought to he, but still she's honest and-Well, I've never met a girl like her."

Eglin gave him a long, thoughtful look. "That's the way it is? First Garfield. Now you. One dead cop isn't enough. Suppose you go back to your traffic corner."

"No." He spoke without thinking. That was what he had wanted once, but not now. "You a.s.signed me to get the low-down on her. And I did. So?"

"Young cops," said Eglin. He spoke bitterly. "The Lord save the public from young cops."

Jordan felt annoyed. "Don't you want an honest report?"

Eglin said, "Where do you carry your gun?"

Jordan tapped his left armpit, looked puzzled.

Eglin nodded. "If you have to get it out, keep the Berkey woman in front of it. As a favor to me, Jordan."

The steaks were nicely broiled. The meal was a man's meal, and relaxing. Even Bart's presence didn't spoil it. Elsa had probably done some talking to her brother since last night, told him that Ron Jordan from St. Louis might stand between him and a bullet.

During dessert abruptly Bart got up and started limping around the room. Something had him scared. It was working on him now.

"Bart, listen-" began Jordan. He stopped short, aware he had almost given himself away. He had almost told Bart to stop worrying.

He blurted, "You wash the dishes, Bart, and I'll dry. We'll show Elsa we appreciate good cooking, huh?"

"I'll do them," said Bart shortly.

Elsa sent Jordan a warning glance: Let Bart do them. It's something to occupy his time. He needs that.

She cleared the table, then came and sat beside Jordan on the couch. He took her hand; she pulled it away.

So that was the way it was going to be. He decided not to waste any time. "You're not what?" he said.

"I don't understand?"

"Last night as I was leaving, you were anxious to tell me that you were not something or other."

She answered quietly, "I'm not a kindergarten teacher any more. But I was once-for a year."

"Why did you quit?"

"Do you know what a school teacher's salary is?" She looked steadily into his eyes. "I'm no sweet and innocent young thing, Ron. You saw that last night."

He said, with a gentleness that surprised himself, "I want to hear it."

"The starting salary for a probationary teacher wasn't enough for two. I made more as a nightclub singer, but not enough more. So I found a job where I waited on men and-used my looks to make selling easy and profitable. Until-" She dropped it there, smiling. "You see?"

"I see," he said. He looked at her eyes and marveled that he had ever thought them hard. He saw that the maternal instinct in her held the quality of fierceness: Bart was the kindergarten cla.s.s that was denied her by whoever determined the low salaries paid to teachers.

She expected him to walk out now. It was plainly there in her expression.

Elsa said, "Ron?"

"Yes?"

"That trouble I told you about-the policeman who was murdered. It's not over. Bart knows something he hasn't told."

She was confiding in him, and he thought of Eglin's crack about young cops. "What?" he asked.

"I don't know. Bart won't tell me what it is. He's terrified and-and I am, too."

"Why don't you go to the police?"

"I would but the man who was killed-I went out with him a few times. Bart is-well, you've seen. He's dependent upon me, and jealous. He didn't like this man, just as he doesn't like you. What if ... " Her mouth trembled. "He couldn't have. He's just a lonely and wretched boy without anyone to turn to but me. There are dark places in his mind but not that kind. I know he couldn't have helped ... "

The whisper dropped away to nothing. She did not need to finish. Jordan knew the rest of it. Did Bart help Joe Crider kill Garfield? That was what Eglin believed. That was what Elsa feared. He wondered if Bart had done the job himself. That would explain why he was not afraid of being attacked last night, his present troubled conscience.

She said quietly, "I've been using you, Ron. When you were a stranger I could do it and it didn't bother me much. Now I know you and I can't any more. You must leave. There's danger here."

He told himself that maybe she wasn't really trying to get rid of him. Maybe this was a more subtle play for his aid. She had adroitly taken the s.e.x out of the situation; now she was appealing to his manhood. Angrily, he pushed away the thought. He was getting as bad as Ben Eglin.

"What kind of danger?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," she said. "But the man we worked for-"

She stopped when Bart came out of the kitchen.

"What is it, Bart?" asked Elsa.

"Nothing," he said defiantly.

"Bart, I've got an idea," said his sister. It was astonis.h.i.+ng how soothing that husky voice could be. "Tomorrow you can start painting my room."

Bart straightened up. Animation came into his face. "Can I, Sis?" he said. He suddenly seemed a lot younger than he actually was. "Swell! I'll paint it that celadon green you like. I'll need a-" He stopped, his face unaccountably stricken.

Jordan caught Bart's tortured expression, wondered what Bart could possibly need that would affect him in this way.

Elsa hadn't noticed. She explained to Jordan, "Bart loves house-painting. He's good, too." Her pride was very apparent. "The owner of the store where we worked bought him some supplies and was going to let him paint the entire store. But then the-the trouble came up."

Jordan sat quite still, on the verge of discovery. Bart had been about to paint the store. Crider had bought him the supplies; they should have been in the store that night. But there was no word of painting supplies in those reports in the murder file. No listing of paint, or brushes ... What else would a painter need? A ladder, a canvas to spread on the floor-That was it! A waterproofed canvas.

Elsa, Jordan saw, had not finished her speech extolling Bart. Bart was always making or fixing something. That cedar flower box, he'd put it together just out of sc.r.a.ps. By laying the living room carpet, he'd saved them the thirty-six dollars that the carpet men wanted to charge for the job. Just yesterday he was puttering with the carpet, hammering some nails in, though he'd finished with that job sometime ago. And there was a lamp shade that never- Jordan got up, forcing himself to be casual as he took Elsa's hand again and led her to the door.

"I'll be back," he said. "Won't be long. Just a little while."

He felt sorry for her because of Bart. He felt sorry for himself because of what his knowledge would now compel him to do to her and her brother. He could not leave her like this. He leaned forward to kiss her, but she turned her head aside.

"You don't have to do that," she said.

To do a complete Judas job, he thought bitterly, the kiss was called for. "We'll save that for later then," he said, knowing that there would be no later.

He closed the door and stood there until he heard both night lock and chain slip into place. In his own apartment he flicked on the light and strode to the front window. He beat a path between the window and the telephone, trying to decide what to do. He knew he had no choice. He must pa.s.s on to Eglin, at once, the discovery that he had made. Eglin would want to send men searching for a house painter's drop cloth stained with the blood of Bob Garfield.

Jordan started back toward the telephone. What if Crider had burned the canvas? But that would not have been so easy. Anyway, if he had, the burning would have left traces-ash or smell-that Eglin's men would never have missed. No, the canvas was hidden somewhere. If they could find it- "h.e.l.lo, Ron," said Gloria Hume. She stood in the doorway, smiling. She walked on in. "n.o.body answers at Elsa's, but the lights were on when I came up the street. Do you know what's the matter?"

"Hi, baby!" Jordan had to get her out and make his phone call. He took her arm and turned her around. "They're home. Go knock again."

She let him lead her only a couple of steps. "Am I getting the b.u.m's rush?"

"No, baby. I've got to talk on the telephone. Private talk."

"You're a strange one, Ron." Her full, red, over-painted lips pouted. "I wouldn't have come in, but I thought-"

She said the rest of it with her eyes. She said she thought he would like having a pretty girl walk into his apartment without knocking. She said something else with her eyes, too, that she didn't intend him to see. She said she wouldn't stand for a man not to rise to the lure she offered.

Standing there studying Gloria Hume, Jordan remembered how Eglin had ridden him, accusing him of trying to play detective. All he was in Eglin's eyes was a lady killer with merely enough brains to be a traffic cop. If he told Eglin to pick Crider up again on the basis of what he knew, he'd really ride him.

"Didn't I tell you that you were a pretty doll?" Ron put one arm around Gloria and pulled her to him. The pressure of her lips were not eager. "What's this? Suddenly, you're a marble statue."