Gentle Murderer (5 page)

“Did you talk to him?”

“No more than thank you. Oh, and I remember him saying, ‘You’re Irish, aren’t you?’ ‘County Mayo,’ says I. ‘My mother came from the old country too,’ he says. Then she called him out to the kitchen to fix something or other she’d broken, a light switch, I think. ‘I’m the handy one to have around the house,’ he says, going out. And he excused himself. To me, mind you. If you want to know what I think about that, I’ll tell you.”

“Please do,” Holden said.

Sergeant Goldsmith had finished his search of the desk. He sat with his back to them, listening.

“Well, I have the notion with her living here in a place like this—the rent is enormous, you know—and the way she talked and all—oh darling this and darling that—she come up in the world all of a sudden. And him I took to be a poor brother or something like that.”

Holden smiled a little. “Maybe. You might be right. But all you have to go on is the good impression he made on you, isn’t it, Mrs. Flaherty?”

“Are you going on anything better?”

“No. I’m not. That’s a fact,” he said easily.

“Besides,” she added, appeased by his humility, “that was one of the few times I ever seen her with a dress on.”

“You don’t miss much, do you?”

“Not if I can take it in, going by.”

“Do you remember if she called him by name?”

She thought for a moment. “No. There’s none comes back to me now.”

“And yet she probably did call him by name. There were two of you in the living room. How did she speak to you?”

“Darling,” she said promptly. “And if she darling’d from the kitchen that day to the two of us, you can be sure I was the last one to answer her.”

“I guess that answers that,” Holden said. “Can you give me any sort of description of the man?” He turned to Goldsmith. “Will you ask Wilson to come in and take this, Sergeant?”

“I’ll do it.” Goldsmith took a notebook and pen from his pocket.

Mrs. Flaherty rocked in the chair, trying to remember. “How do you describe just nobody?” she said finally. “That’s what he looked like. Nobody at all, or anybody you’d meet on the street.”

“You’re tired,” Holden said. “We’ve asked you a lot of questions. I’ll have someone drive you home soon.”

“The kids’ll have the house in a shambles, and their father wouldn’t say a word to them lying in the middle of it.”

“Just a few minutes more, Mrs. Flaherty. How old do you think the man was?”

“Maybe twenty-five. Maybe thirty-five. It was that kind of a face. Kind of sad and quiet-looking. Except when he smiled he looked different. Kind of holy-looking. Big eyes. Brown, I’d say, but I’m not sure, and they were awful big. He was no more than a couple of inches taller than me. He had nice hands. I remember looking at them on the arm of the chair.”

“Any rings?”

“None,” she said. “Not even dirt rings under his fingernails. But all the same I took him for a working man.”

“By that you mean manual labor?”

“I do.” Obviously she had a low opinion of any other work.

“How much would you guess his weight to be?”

“No more than my Billy. A hundred and thirty-four at his best weight.”

“Hair?”

“A fair share of it.” Then she added, “Flat and looselike, it was, and the color of a mouse.”

“Would you say the call this afternoon was from him?”

“I would not. There was the difference of night and day in their voices.”

“And he was the only guest you ever saw in the house?”

“The only one I saw. But I’m sure as I’m sitting here, there was others. And not the brotherly kind, if you know what I mean.”

“I see. Now, Mrs. Flaherty, when did you last give the apartment a thorough cleaning?”

She puckered her face in concentration. “I did all the woodwork Friday afternoon, and the floors Saturday. I polished the furniture Wednesday, so I gave it a lick with the duster Saturday.”

“Do you do dishes?”

“I do not.”

“And the bed linen—how often is that changed?”

“Every other day. Yesterday I did that. Towels every day.”

“What time were you in here yesterday?”

“It was the last stop. I came in about four and left at five-thirty.”

“Was Miss Gebhardt here?”

“She came in about five. ‘I’m exhausted,’ she says, ‘and I have to dress. It’s such a trial—shopping these days.’ I says to myself, If that’s all that’s exhausting you, you’re fortunate.”

Holden rubbed his chin. “When you let yourself in today, Mrs. Flaherty, the place was in darkness?”

“It was. I lit the light in the foyer myself.”

“What made you decide to polish the fixtures and the doorknobs right then?”

“I didn’t know you’d be needing them,” she snapped. “I like to save myself steps.”

“There were no smudges or spots that drew your attention to them?”

“Not as I think on it, your honor.”

“Now the matter of the telephone,” Holden said. “Did it often ring while you were here?”

“I wouldn’t say often. I never answered it before. They’d take the message downstairs after a few rings. But this afternoon you’d of thought it was possessed.”

“Getting back to the gentleman you met here, did he have any sort of an accent, anything in his voice you’d recognize if you heard it again?”

“He was just quiet-spoken. Kind of like you, your honor.”

“I’m a police lieutenant, Mrs. Flaherty. Lieutenant Holden, assigned to homicide.”

“I always thought lieutenants were young men.”

“Well, it doesn’t always hold in the police department,” he said, getting up. “And I’m not exactly senile.”

“Excuse me, Lieutenant. But you are middle-aged.”

“Lieutenants get middle-aged very quickly, unless they get to be captains first. Thanks for your patience, Mrs. Flaherty. That’s all for now, unless the sergeant has any questions.”

She looked at Goldsmith appraisingly.

“And if you’ve got the idea all sergeants are hard-boiled,” Holden added, “you’ll find him the exception. As gentle as Miss Gebhardt’s visitor. He’ll see that someone takes you home.” He slumped back in the chair while Goldsmith escorted her up the steps. He nodded when she turned and bade him good-by again.

“The poor man’s tired,” she said to Goldsmith.

“It’s the feeling you get coming up against something like this. Now, when we open the door here Mrs. Flaherty …”

She interrupted. “What do you mean, the feeling you get? Isn’t this your job?”

Goldsmith smiled. “It’s our job, but we don’t always relish it. How did you feel when you tackled that bathroom this morning?”

“Ah, now I get you,” she said, wagging her head. “The world’s full of terrible people, isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s full of people who do terrible things,” he said. “Now, when you get into the hall, don’t be alarmed if a lot of lights flash in your face. The newspapers. It might be as well if you don’t stop to talk to them now.”

“If the devil spoke to me first I wouldn’t answer him till I’ve a cup of tea.”

“Good. You’ll be home soon.”

She allowed herself to be led to the door and then drew back again. She looked the detective squarely in the eye. “You’re a quiet sort for a policeman. What’s your name?”

“Goldsmith. Sergeant Ben Goldsmith.”

“Do you happen to know a patrolman named Alec Donovan?”

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Well,” she said, “you’re not missing much. I’m glad to see they’ve the responsible ones handling murder.”

H
OLDEN LEAPED TO HIS
feet the instant the door closed on Mrs. Flaherty. He was moving back and forth across the room when Goldsmith returned.

“The others are waiting downstairs,” the sergeant said. “Do you want them up here?”

“I don’t want anyone in here. Not till we’re through. There’s no reason those fellows can’t wait in the lobby, too.” He indicated the newspapermen crowding the hall.

“The management, Lieutenant.”

“Then let the management find a place for them. What’s the story on fingerprints?”

“The place is lousy with them, big prints, little prints, thumbs, elbows …”

Holden cut him off. “How many people?”

“Five so far.”

“Take out hers and Flaherty’s, that leaves three. Where are they?”

“In the bedroom mostly. There’s some, in the kitchen.”

Holden grunted. “None in the bath?”

“Mrs. Flaherty is a thorough woman.”

“The towels?”

“We’ve got them. But I think they’re a washout.”

Holden glanced up. Goldsmith’s pun was unintended. “The soap box?”

“A lot of people threw out soap boxes today. The lab’s working on it.”

“I don’t want any prints missed. Have them spray the walls, the woodwork, the light fixtures, especially that one in the kitchen … every bottle in that cupboard.”

“Right.”

“And the bed, the linen on the bed. It’s good grade stuff?”

“Not as special as some she’s got in the closet, but the boys’ll bring out anything on it.”

Holden lit a cigarette and went to the window. Looking down, he saw the crowd milling about, stretching, straining, striking up a camaraderie they never found except in disaster. He closed his eyes and thought about Dolly Gebhardt. The medical examiner placed her death between eight o’clock and ten “Saturday night. She was wearing evening clothes. She probably had not eaten dinner. The autopsy now in progress would determine that, also the probable weapon with which she had been murdered.

Holden dragged deeply on his cigarette. There was always a lag at this stage of investigation that put him on edge. Laboratory reports incomplete, witnesses not immediate … all the important routine work to be done and yet the pressure for haste upon him … the possibility that a murderer was throwing up his camouflage, burning bridges, making time.

He turned from the window as Goldsmith came back from the bedroom. He watched him move about the room, studying the pictures on the walls, the books, magazines. The sergeant might be there on a visit by the looks of him—a young doctor, a teacher maybe. Probably a teacher: patient, inquisitive, but rather off-hand about it. A small man nobody would take for a detective, there was a warmth in him that had not yet burned out in the coldblooded business of criminal investigation. That was his great value: his human understanding. It brought him to the most unlikely criminal. No fingerprints and weapons man, he always started by studying the victim. The apparent leisure with which he could approach it grated on Holden at moments like these, however.

“You’ve had the afternoon in the boudoir and lounge, Goldie. Just who was Dolly Gebhardt?”

Goldsmith was accustomed to his superior’s sarcasm at this junction. “She was born Doris Arleen Gebhardt in 1910 at Spring Falls, Minnesota. She was in the chorus line a good many years ago, but I’d say she fell by the wayside early.”

“Don’t be so damned poetic. Give me the facts.”

“She was a call girl, a high-class prostitute.”

T
HE EARLY EDITION OF
the tabloids carried the story … not much story but plenty of bold print. They described Dolly Gebhardt as an attractive redhead and former show girl, they called the murder brutal, and they mentioned Mrs. Flaherty. Father Duffy read the piece through, his heart pounding. For the load he had borne by knowing that murder had been committed, he now picked up one twice its weight. The penitent had not gone to the police, and with each hour that he remained unapprehended, the weight would be that much more unbearable.

He laid the paper away and put on his coat. Downstairs he looked up the Flaherty address in the parish record. He walked the distance briskly, not knowing what he might say or ask. There was something vaguely comforting in the fact that out of all the people in New York who might have discovered the crime, one of his parishioners had … comforting and frightening. The largest city in the world was very small to a man in flight. It was large only to his pursuers.

He nodded absently to those who greeted him. Half the neighborhood seemed to have gathered on the steps of the tenement building where the Flahertys lived. Word of his coming flew up the stairs ahead of him, and Flaherty came down with his lunch box as the priest rounded the second floor railing. “Hello, Billy.”

“Good evening, Father. Are you here about the murder?”

“I thought there might be something I could do.”

“There is something, Father. You can talk sense into Norah’s head. She’s past listening to me for many a year. I’m all the time telling her if I don’t bring home enough we can go without. Not to be hiring herself out, and the kids running round like wild geese. Now look what she’s brought us. What do the likes of us want meddling in a murder?”

Or the likes of me, Father Duffy thought.

“I’ll see what I can do, Billy.”

“You can tell her to stop pleasuring in it. Isn’t that some kind of sin, Father?”

“It’s very human, Billy,” the priest said.

Flaherty grunted. “Well, I never knew a humaner woman than Norah. I have to hurry, Father, or I’ll be late on the job. It’s the fourth floor but you’ll hear it from the landing.”

Indeed he could hear it from where he stood when Flaherty left him, the great spiraling “oh” that from many years of association with Irish women he knew to be the climax of a shocking story. As though timed with his reaching the floor, however, the laughter and talk subsided. When he reached the open kitchen door off the hallway three women were sitting at the table, watching for him. They stood up in unison. He waved them back into their seats.

“You’re come about the murder, Father,” Mrs. Flaherty started. “Lord, how news travels. Will you have a cup of tea if I put up the kettle?”

“Thank you, no, Mrs. Flaherty. I just thought I’d stop up in case there was any advice or help I could give you.”

“That was real thoughtful, Father. You know Mrs. Healy and Mrs. Hernandez?”

He nodded to the neighbors. “You must have had quite a day, Mrs. Flaherty.”

“I’ll be a long time forgetting it. My heart’s just beginning to settle … Get back in your bed there, Sally! Shame on you, coming out before the priest like that.”

Father Duffy nodded at Sally, an eight-year-old in a cotton nightgown she had outgrown at six. The girl ducked back into the bedroom.