Slow Burn (2 page)

“Got plenty of John Smiths in the register, too,” Miller said. “But I’ll bet most of ’em cleared outta here when they heard someone went and got themselves killed. The ones sober enough to get dressed, anyway.”

I’d seen some of patrons scurrying off into the night when my partner and I had pulled up about twenty minutes before. Men pulling up their pants, tucking in shirttails. Women fixing their skirts as they ran down the street. Every last one of them in a big hurry to run back to their lives as respectable people. Putting as much distance between them and The Chauncey Arms as possible.

“My partner, Detective Loomis, and a couple of uniforms are already knocking on doors, canvassing the place for witnesses.” I knew they wouldn’t turn up much, but it still had to be done. “You got a pass key they could use in case they need to get into one of the rooms?”

Miller shrugged. “Sure, but anyone still here is probably too drunk or too high to have heard much. But I’ll be glad to lend you my master key to let you in wherever you want to go. Like I said, I’m here to help. Could be helpful in a lot of ways.”

“No kidding?” I saw no harm in playing along. “Like how?”

Miller looked up and down the hall first before beckoning me closer. “Got me a couple of ideas on who killed that Lindbergh kid over in Jersey, see? You hear lots of things workin’ in a place like this, and I’ve heard some choice stuff that’ll curl your hair for you. I’d be willing to share what I know. For a piece of the reward money, of course.”

Just what I needed. Another crackpot. “Of course, but unfortunately, that’s not my case. How about telling me about the guy who rented Room 909, instead? This Silas Van Dorn. What’d he look like?” With his dreams of the Lindbergh reward fading,

Miller went back to deadpanning it. “Beats me. Register said he rented the room yesterday mornin’ after my shift ended.”

“What hours do you work?”

“Seven in the evening to seven in the morning, Register says he checked in yesterday morning some time nine and paid through midnight. The daytime clerk ain’t much for details, so I don’t know exactly when. Looks like he paid cash money, too. I was too busy at the desk to check on the room ‘til ‘bout an hour ago. But when I came up to check it, that’s when I found… well, you know what I found. This Van Dorn fella coulda walked past me a dozen times, but I wouldn’t know who he was.” I saw an idea dawn on Augie Miller. “Say, you boys are gonna clean up that room when you’re done, aren’t ya? I mean, you ain’t gonna up and leave all that mess behind. Someone’s gonna hafta clean it, and it sure as hell ain’t gonna be me.”

I found Miller’s compassion overwhelming. I waved over one of the uniforms posted in the hall and said, “Take Mr. Miller here down to the front desk. Help him find the name Silas Van Dorn in the register, then get in touch with the day manager. Ask him what this Van Dorn guy looked like. I’ll be down in a couple of minutes.”

Miller loped down the stairs as the policeman followed close behind him. Augie Miller: Citizen of the Year. That was the first time I’d ever laid eyes on Augie Miller, and that’s what bothered me. Back when I’d worked Vice, I knew everyone who worked every dive, speakeasy, flop house, whorehouse and gambling den in the city. I would’ve known Augie — and he would’ve been more helpful than this. I felt those old resentments rising again, but cut them off even quicker this time. What was done was done, and there was no going back. Besides, I had a job to do: I had a file to build for the daytime shift. Might as well get started building it.

W
HILE
I waited for the coroner to show up, I wandered back into Room 909 and watched Frank English take pictures of the scene from different angles. Although I’d seen plenty of action on the Vice squad, I hadn’t worked many homicides. English had worked dozens of homicide scenes like this, so I decided to pick his brain a little. I lit a cigarette and struck up a conversation.

“Crying shame, isn’t it? Girl that young. Dying like that in a place like this.”

English kept taking pictures. “Not the first stiff I’ve had this week. Probably won’t be the last, either. It’s the weather. The hotter it gets, the more people end up getting themselves killed.” Then English lowered his camera and looked down at the dead girl with his own eyes. Like he was seeing her — really seeing her — for the very first time. “Gotta admit she’s the prettiest stiff I’ve had in a while. Wonder what she was doing here.”

I’d been wondering the same thing. “She sure doesn’t look like a pro, does she?”

“How the hell should I know?” Frank went back to working his camera. “You’re the detective, not me.”

Served me right for trying to strike up a conversation with a lousy shutterbug. With still no sign of the coroner, I killed some time by trying to pull the crime scene together in my mind. I wasn’t much of a homicide detective, but it beat the hell out of standing around sweating and smoking cigarettes while I waited for the meat wagon to show. Augie Miller’s shift had ended at seven o’clock the previous morning. The killer had paid for the room in cash from ten in the morning until midnight. Miller came back to work at seven that night, but hadn’t gotten around to checking the room until about three in the morning. That meant the girl had probably been dead at least three, maybe four hours if not more.

That meant the killer already had one hell of a head start on me before I’d even gotten the call.

I decided to start taking notes on the condition of the room. Calling Room 909 a room was being generous. It was more like a cell. It was small, with barely enough space for the bed and bureau. I noticed the sheets had been stripped from the bed, revealing a thin mattress with old, brown stains.

None of them looked fresh, which told me the girl probably hadn’t been killed on the bed. Blood would’ve seeped into the mattress.

I made note of it.

Question #1: Why strip the sheets?

The wallpaper was peeling and faded, but there were no signs of blood anywhere on the walls. Even if someone had tried to wipe it away, blood usually left traces behind. And if they scrubbed too hard, the ancient wallpaper would’ve come off the walls. I made note of that as well. I noticed the smell of the room next. The air reeked of stale sex and cheap cigarettes. And something else. Something sweeter. Different. Something that I knew didn’t belong in a dive like this, but couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t pot or hash. I knew those smells well. This was a harsher smell. Sharper. But I couldn’t put my finger on it. I thought of asking English what he thought it could be, but thought better of it. I wrote it down and decided to come back to it later instead.

I started taking notes on the corpse. She’d been left on the floor just outside the bathroom. Naked. Legs straight and together. Arms at her sides. Palms down, flat on the floor. I was no homicide cop, but I’d seen my share of dead bodies. I knew that no one ever died that neat. Especially when your throat was cut. That meant the killer had positioned her that way on purpose.

Question #2: Why?

The body itself was the best clue I had, so I took a closer look at it. The girl wasn’t fat, but she had meat on her bones. I wouldn’t move her until the coroner showed up, but I could see her skin was milk white and clear. No visible scars, bruises or needle marks on her arms or anywhere else. Chances were she wasn’t a junkie. Her nails were manicured and looked like they had a coat or two of clear polish. Her hair was black and cut short into an expensive bob. I knew it was expensive because my wife got hers cut the same way. At least she did when I’d had plenty of money. From the way the girl was laying, I could tell black was her natural hair color.

I also noticed her ears had been pierced, which meant earrings. I looked for them on the dresser, but came up empty. I took note of that, too. I could see she was too healthy to be a regular working girl. And if she’d been a high-class call girl, she would’ve been a blond. Most men liked blondes, thanks to Jean Harlow.

So the question I’d asked Frank English stuck with me: What was a girl like her doing in a hellhole like this? Sometimes the most basic questions are the most important.

I figured her clothes could tell me something more about her. Labels, laundry markings. Something.

I looked around the room without crossing the invisible line into Frank’s shot, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Not on the bed, not on the floor. No purse, either. I swallowed my pride and tried talking to Frank again. “Any sign of her things? Clothes? Purse?”

“Not unless they’re in the bureau,” Frank moved to the other side of the room. “No sign of much, to tell you the truth. For a dump like this, the room is immaculate. Cleanest goddamned crime scene I ever saw.”

I froze. That was it. That sweet, harsh smell I’d caught earlier. Soap. Cheap and watered down, but soap just the same.

Question #3: Why would a dump like this smell like soap? I took a closer look around the room. Not one speck of dust anywhere. The floor around the body had been given a good scrubbing. The bureau shined and looked like it had been wiped clean of prints. But maybe she’d put her things inside. “You get enough shots of the bureau yet?”

Frank sighed heavily as he took another picture. “It’s all yours.”

Careful not to smudge any fingerprints, I used my pencil to pull open and close the drawers. Every one of them empty, just as I’d expected. I dropped to the floor and shined my flashlight under the bed. Nothing. Not even dust. I got up and checked the window. It faced Twenty- Eighth Street and had a good view of the chop suey joint across the way. No fire escape, either, but the window was painted shut anyway. I didn’t run my finger along the sill or the window frame. I didn’t have to. No dust there, either. Damned strange.

I was busy writing all of it in my notebook when I heard grunting and heavy footsteps on the creaking floorboards out in the hall. I knew I’d just caught a break because Ed Hancock, the city’s deputy chief medical examiner, had arrived. Hancock’s large, round belly preceded him into the room like a butler announcing his arrival. The handle of his ancient black medical bag looked small in his stubby fingers. Suspenders strained to keep his pants up over his considerable girth. The stub of a dead cigar was tucked in the corner of his mouth. Tufts of whitish hair poked out from beneath an old gray hat plopped back high on his head. His gray tie had been pulled low on his neck, and he’d sweated through his white shirt hours ago.

True, it was a humid August night, but that didn’t mean much. I’d seen Hancock sweat that much in a blizzard. Hancock might not have been a fashion plate, but he was the best crime scene man in the coroner’s office. Most people in city government got caught up in the politics of their job, even if politics didn’t have much to do with their position. But just about the only thing in this world that Ed Hancock cared about was working crime scenes. Chief Medical Examiners came and went in this city, but Ed Hancock remained. He had that worn look of a man who’d seen just about every instance of human depravity in the book and just kept plodding through it. “Evening, Charlie,” Hancock muttered as he paddled past me into the room, straight for the girl’s body.

“Evening, Ed.” I quickly found a blank page in my notebook and got ready to write. I knew when Hancock worked a scene; the facts came fast and continuous. I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut and write down everything he said. Frank kept taking his pictures, but that didn’t stop Hancock from beginning his examination. I watched the fat man’s eyes canvas the girl’s body.

Stopping. Squinting. Flashing, then moving on. I knew the mumbled dialogue that went along with it was worth sticking around for. “Ah, you poor, poor girl,” Hancock muttered to the corpse. His eyes never stopped moving. He took it all in: the position of the body, the wound, the blood. Hancock always saw more than everyone else, even the camera. His nostrils flared, like a dog tasting the air. The stuff he could figure out even before he touched the body had sent chills down my spine many times over the years.