The Brink of Murder (12 page)

Simon shoved the telephone into Wanda’s hand. “You talk to the firemen!” he shouted. He sprinted after the moving car and it must have been his own voice he heard yelling. The driver made a second try for the brake, hit it, and the convertible leapt the curb and crashed into a row of privet hedges before it stopped. Simon reached the car and yanked open the door before the shocked driver could pry his hands off the steering wheel. Pulling off his car coat, Simon flailed at the flames on the woman’s clothing until the fire was out. Blackened and broken, her body twisted in a cruelly unnatural position, she lay motionless and silent on the back seat of the car.

He reached forward and brushed away the remnant of burned hair that covered her face. The woman was Mary Sutton.

Someone—perhaps Wanda—completed the call to the fire department. Within minutes the street filled with sobbing vehicles: a police car first, then the fire trucks, finally the ambulance. Everybody was alert, efficient and dedicated but they were all in vain except for the firemen who did put out the blaze in apartment 422. In vain because, in spite of emergency treatment at the hospital, Mary Sutton died at nine minutes past nine that same evening.

A
T SOME TIME
during the five hours that elapsed before Mary Sutton died, Simon put Wanda into a cab and sent her back to the hotel. That much he remembered even when every other incident was being lost or pulled out of context in the emotional storm that followed the fiery catapault from Mary’s apartment. There was a lot of noise—he remembered that: shouts, screams, sirens, horns and screeching brakes. There was confusion and paralysis; there were also the unleashed energies that explode in action when man, usually oblivious to any needs but his own, becomes suddenly aware of tragedy and the compulsion to do something about it. Centre of the stage for Mary Sutton, 25, beautiful, burned and battered by the fall. It was Simon who beat out the flames on her body, but he didn’t move her from the back seat of the convertible. Her neck was twisted in an unnatural angle and one arm was bent backward under her body. He waited for the ambulance.

The police were the first to arrive, followed quickly by the fire fighters. By the time the ambulance came the police were busy herding spectators away from the car that was still stuck in the hedges and trying to get a coherent statement from the terrified driver. Mary Sutton’s still-breathing body was lifted carefully on to a stretcher and whisked into the ambulance. Moments later it screamed off into the darkening streets with a motorcycle escort. Simon managed to extricate himself from the mêlée, call a cab for Wanda on the telephone in his car, and then take up pursuit of the ambulance. Sinai was the closest hospital: that was where Mary was taken. By the time Simon arrived she was in the emergency room and it would be almost an hour before the first report issued indicated the seriousness of her condition. In the interim Simon located a telephone and tried to reach Paul Corman at the number listed in the directory. He made three calls in all without getting an answer. It was sad. It seemed that somebody should know that Mary Sutton, who was so young, was fighting for her life. Returning at last to the corridor outside the emergency room he was hailed by a familiar voice.

“Hullo, Drake,” Captain Reardon said. “I heard via channels that you saw this thing happen. I’d like to get your story.”

Reardon, as usual, was sartorially splendid. Dark-grey suit, silver-striped tie and a grey waterproof folded over one arm. He wore no hat but did wear lightly tinted glasses which he removed as he spoke. “Need them for night driving,” he explained. “They cut the glare of headlights.”

“They wouldn’t have cut the glare of the fire,” Simon said.

“What were you doing at Mary Sutton’s apartment?”

“I had an appointment. There was something I wanted to talk to her about before I go back to the beach tomorrow.”

“Something concerning Amling?”

“In a way.”

“How did the fire start?”

“I don’t know. I never got into the apartment. I had just parked across the street from the building when a window on the fourth floor burst into flame. Seconds later she came hurtling out with her hair and clothes afire.”

Reardon’s bland expression didn’t change. He looked almost bored. Horror was as commonplace as breakfast cereal to a policeman who had reached the status of captain. “The report states that she landed in the back seat of a speeding car,” he said.

“Wrong,” Simon corrected. “The car was barely moving. It accelerated into the nearest shrubbery when the driver saw what happened.”

“Anybody else see the girl fall?”

“My wife was waiting in my car at the time.”

“Where is she?”

“At The Century Plaza. We have a room there. But can’t you postpone questioning her at least until tomorrow? She was pretty shaken up. I told her to take a sedative and go right to bed.”

Reardon took a breath mint from his coat pocket and popped it into his mouth. He nodded. “No sweat,” he said. “I can get her story any time. I’m just wondering why you aren’t with her.”

“I beat out the flames with my coat,” Simon said. “I’d like to know how Mary Sutton makes out.”

“Curiosity or friendship?”

“I could hardly call it friendship. Until two days ago I wasn’t aware that the girl existed.”

“But she’s pretty, isn’t she? It always seems worse when they’re so pretty—and so young. Hey, look. We’ve got company.”

The door at the far end of the corridor had opened and a man was walking towards them. He didn’t come briskly and he didn’t look athletic. He walked slowly as if he had lived in his body too long and was tired of carrying it about. Then he looked up and saw Simon and Reardon and made a feeble attempt to pull himself together. It was Ralph McClary steeling himself for the inevitable questions. No, he hadn’t seen Mary Sutton since the previous afternoon when she left the office. No, he hadn’t talked to her on the telephone. Pacific Guaranty wasn’t scheduled to re-open until Monday morning. With such a long weekend he was sure Mary would be in the mountains skiing. He had come to the hospital in response to a message from the police who could find no next of kin listed in any of the credentials found in Mary’s apartment.

“I—we were so shocked. Mrs McClary and me,” he said. “Mrs McClary wanted to come to the hospital too, but she’s been fighting off an attack of Hong Kong ‘flu and I wouldn’t let her get out of bed.”

Simon remembered something Mary Sutton had said when he called her. “I did telephone Miss Sutton today. She mentioned that she had a party in her apartment last night. I take it you weren’t invited.”

McClary’s face wrinkled in a sick smile. “I’m not a member of the jet-set,” he said. The words must have sounded harsh to his ears because he added, apologetically, “I mean there is a generation gap. You might call Paul Corman. He was probably there. He and Mary dated—I guess they still call it dating nowadays.”

“The police have already done that,” Reardon said. “He isn’t at home.”

McClary seemed surprised. “No? Well, perhaps he went to the mountains alone. He’s a ski buff too. Is that what they call it—buff? Sometimes I’m not sure I speak the same language as the youngsters. You might try Mammoth. I heard Paul talking about the good snow up there.”

“Do you know where he stays?” Reardon asked.

“Sorry. No idea. But Paul should know about this—this frightful thing. Do you think she has a chance?”

“She’s still breathing,” Reardon said. “That’s about all.”

“That’s what the officer who telephoned me said. I can’t tell you how terrible I feel. Miss Sutton was so vital and such an asset to the association. How did the fire start?”

“We think it was from a cigarette. She was smoking—there were ashes and stubs in an ashtray near the chair where the fire apparently started. It spread to the drapes. Some of those new fabrics are highly inflammable.”

“No gas?” McClary asked.

“I was parked outside the building,” Simon said. “I didn’t hear an explosion.”

“Neither did any of the people in the building who we interviewed,” Reardon added. “Why did you think of gas, Mr McClary?”

It wasn’t warm in the corridor but McClary was sweating. He rummaged through his pockets until he found a handkerchief and mopped his brow. “I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I thought there might have been a leak. Mary wasn’t a careless type.”

“She might have had a hangover after the party.”

“I suppose so. I really don’t know about such things at all. But it is terrible—especially after this other mess.”

“I think Mr McClary means the additional publicity won’t enhance the image of Pacific Guaranty,” Simon observed.

McClary’s eyes were too guilty to make a denial worth the effort. He located a chair and sank down morosely to stare at the closed doors of the emergency room like a condemned criminal awaiting sentence. The press had given him a bad time with the Amling disappearance. They would be back full force as soon as somebody realized the identity of the fire victim. It was seven o’clock when the reporters began to arrive. By that time word had filtered out that Mary Sutton wasn’t responding to treatment. Some kind of complications the medics hadn’t identified, except to admit they were wholly unrelated to the burns. What hard information came out of that room was given to Captain Reardon and he spoke to the press as tersely as if he were dictating telegrams at a day rate. Brushing them aside, he beckoned to Simon to follow him into another corridor. The passage led to an exit door into the parking-yard where the world had turned dark except for the floodlights that hung like pale halos in the fog. As soon as they were outside the building Reardon dug out a package of cigarettes from his pocket and offered them to Simon.

“I’m quitting,” Simon said.

“One of the gutsy ones,” Reardon remarked. “I’ve quit seventeen times this year and I’ll quit again in the morning. Right now I need a smoke.” He touched a lighter to the cigarette and nudged Simon across the yard towards a black Cadillac parked in a no-parking zone. “I’m going to drive over and have a look at the inside of that apartment myself,” he said. “I thought you might like to come along.”

“What did they tell you about Mary Sutton’s condition?” Simon asked.

“Not much change. Little chance of survival. Don’t worry about it. I left the apartment telephone number with the nurse at the reception desk. They’ll call me there if there’s any change.”

It was a lot better than hanging around in a hospital corridor when there was work to be done. Simon got into the Cadillac with Reardon and they eased out of the yard quietly. Reardon drove swiftly through fog-veiled streets that seemed strangely hushed after the siren-screaming exodus to the hospital hours earlier. There was little traffic and it was only a matter of minutes before the Cadillac slid silently to the curb and parked opposite Mary Sutton’s apartment building. Three hours had obliterated tragedy. No morbidly curious, no fire trucks, no police cars crowded the street now. Except for a boarded-up window on the fourth floor there was nothing to distinguish the building from any other apartment house in the area.

“You’re just about a car length behind the place where I was parked when Mary Sutton came through the window,” Simon observed. “The passing convertible with the top down was moving in the opposite direction. It carried her almost to the end of the block before the hysterical driver jumped the curb and landed in somebody’s hedge. I followed the convertible. Never got inside the building at all.”

“Let’s have a look-see,” Reardon said.

He got out of the Cadillac and led the way across the street and inside the foyer where a sad-eyed little man wearing a baggy sweater over faded blue jeans was shoving a carpet shampoo machine over the soiled wall-to-wall. Reardon asked for the manager and showed his credentials. The man turned off the machine and glared back with smouldering hostility.

“Don’t you fellows ever quit for the day?” he said. “I’ve been combing cops and firemen out of my hair all evening. Look what they did to this carpet. Water and mud all over the place. And upstairs. I saw the firemen coming and got the pass key to four-twenty-two so they wouldn’t chop down the door. Did that stop them? Just because I was excited and couldn’t get the door unlocked fast enough they smashed it in anyway.”

“You’re lucky they did,” Reardon said. “The fire might have spread to the whole building.”

“Maybe. But I could have unlocked the door if they waited a few seconds.”

“Do you still have that key handy?”

“It won’t do any good now. The lock’s smashed. I just finished nailing some boards across the door so nobody would go in and steal Miss Sutton’s things. She has some real nice things—if the firemen left any of them unbroken.”

“Is there a service door?”

Reluctantly, the manager conceded that there was a service door and went into his apartment long enough to produce the key. He accompanied them upstairs on the service stairway inquiring en route as to the condition of Mary Sutton and regretting dolefully that such a tragedy should happen to such a nice woman. “A real lady,” he said. “No noise, no loud parties. Always paid her rent on time without being asked.”

“She gave a party last night, didn’t she?” Simon asked.

“Did she? Maybe a dinner party—something like that. All I know is that she never caused any disturbance in the building. I wish I could say as much for all the tenants.”

The service door opened easily and the manager switched on the light. They entered the apartment through the kitchen—a bright yellow and white room with bleached wood cabinets, a stainless steel sink set in yellow tile and a yellow counter gas range with a built-in oven. The firemen hadn’t reached this far. Everything was immaculate except for two glasses and a Martini pitcher containing a little melted ice that stood on the counter bar separating the kitchen from the dining area. Reardon dismissed the manager, who probably returned to his shampoo machine, and closed the door behind him. They proceeded through the dining area, where a circular teak wood table flanked by four naugahide upholstered chairs remained undisturbed, into the living room which appeared to have been struck by a tornado. The soggy carpet was muddied from the hall door to the boarded-up window; a tall ceramic lamp was in pieces on the floor; the charred remains of a melon-coloured seat cushion had landed on a sideboard smashing several porcelain vases; and the chair from which it was taken, blacked by soot and fire, still sat forlornly beside the scorched wall where blacked fragments of draperies still clung to the traverse rods. Simon found a lamp that wasn’t broken and Reardon located the wall switch. Light made the scene even more depressing.

Reardon crouched behind the burned chair and found a walnut table with one leg broken and the fragment stuck in the shattered remains of a large mosaic ashtray that had leaked butts and ashes all over the carpet. He examined the cigarette butts. They were a mentholated brand with a mouthpiece that showed smudges of lipstick.

“She must have been sitting in this chair smoking when the fire started,” he said. “It spread to the drapes and—zowie!”

“I wonder why she didn’t run for the door,” Simon said.

Reardon looked across the room. It was at least fifteen feet to the hall door. He crossed the space and examined the lock.