Vice Cop Page 8

  “What about it?” the lieutenant rasped.

  “Her arms close to her sides, her legs straight out, her face straight up. She looks as though she’d been arranged for burial by a mortician.”

  “So?”

  “It doesn’t look like a suicide. It occurred to me maybe she wasn’t stabbed on the bed. Maybe whoever did it picked her up afterward and laid her there, then straightened her out.”

  Lieutenant Wynn stared at me. “We’ll look for somebody with neat habits,” he finally growled. “You want to take this case over?”

  I looked at Hank Carter, who merely shrugged. I walked out into the hall and waited.

  Wynn barked a series of orders at the lab man, photographer and M. E. Then he came out into the hall, trailed by his partner.

  “All right, Rudd,” he said. “Take it from the beginning.”

  I told him how we happened to be there, about the lights going out and my letting the boys in for the raid. I skipped mention of how I had managed to wrangle myself an invitation to the party. I suggested that we wait until we got downstairs before I described everyone’s location during the raid, so I could point out the people as I told where we had found them.

  “Nobody yet knows Mrs. Whittier is dead,” I concluded. “Even the officers with me, except for Carl Lincoln.”

  Lieutenant Wynn grunted and headed for the stairs. Hank Carter and I followed.

  Downstairs Wynn glared around the room, then spotted Big Joe Greco and did a double-take. His glare evaporated.

  Walking over to the politician, he said politely, “How’d you get here, Mr. Greco?”

  Greco said tonelessly, “I was invited to the party.”

  Carl Lincoln drifted over to me and said nearly inaudibly, without moving his lips, “Did you hear what he called him, Matt?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said without moving mine. “He was introduced to me as Grace.”

  Carl said, “I think we’re in trouble.”

  Lieutenant Wynn swung toward me. “I want to see you privately, Rudd.”

  I led the way into the center hall and on into the study. Wynn pushed the door shut.

  “What’re you trying to pull, Sergeant?” he demanded. “Why’d you let this raid go through when you knew Big Joe Greco was in the house?”

  “I heard you call him Greco,” I said. “He was introduced to me as Grace.”

  “Don’t you know the councilmen-at-large in your own city?” Wynn almost shouted. “What the hell kind of a cop are you?”

  “Vice, gambling and narcotics,” I said coldly. “A division you haven’t got any control over. If you had, I’d resign from the force.”

  Wynn turned beet red. He stared at me for quite a while before his color faded. In a controlled voice he said, “I asked you a question.”

  “Two,” I corrected him. “I answered the second.”

  He started to turn red again, then changed his mind. “Didn’t you know that was Big Joe Greco?” he asked tightly.

  “I met the man for the first time in my life tonight. His name was supposed to be Joe Grace. If he wants political immunity, he shouldn’t go around using aliases.”

  Lieutenant Wynn decided to turn off his anger. He said with only his normal amount of irritability, “He uses Grace out here in the west end. You realize this changes the picture, don’t you?”

  “How’s that?”

  “Youre going to have to forget any vice and narcotics charges. Grace would have all our heads.”

  “You going to forget the body upstairs?” I inquired.

  “Of course not,” the lieutenant said ‘with impatience. “Even for Mr. Third District we can’t sit on a murder. But we’ll play it as though it was just an ordinary party. Greco will have to put up with the publicity of being at a party where his hostess was murdered, but we can’t let it out that he was at a marijuana and sex orgy. Understand?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t make policy decisions, Lieutenant. I just turn the evidence over to my chief. If Captain Spangler wants to sit on it, that’s up to him.”

  “He’ll want to sit on it,” Wynn assured me grimly. “Just don’t sound off to any reporters meantime. And tell your men the same.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  Turning, he jerked the door open and strode back to the front room. Following after him, I stopped next to Carl Lincoln, who gave me an inquiring look. I merely shook my head.

  Wynn assumed a stance in the center of the room and announced generally, “In case you people wonder why your party has suddenly been overrun by police, there’s been a death. Your hostess, Mrs. Whittier, is dead.”

  Reactions were varied. Ross Whittier let out a yelp, turned pale and collapsed into one of the two remaining vacant chairs. Sharon was sufficiently jolted to straighten away from the bar and momentarily look sober. Then she passed a hand over her face, leaned against the bar again and let her face go blank. The two women who were still up in the clouds continued to stare dreamily off into space, oblivious to everything but their inner glows. Most of the others, including the cops on my raiding party who were learning of this development for the first time, merely looked surprised. Howard Farrell and Joe Greco simultaneously started toward the stairway.

  “Hold it!” Wynn said, for Greco’s benefit managing to make the command both authoratative and polite. “There’s nothing you can do for her. Besides, a medical examiner and some lab people are up there. You’d only interfere with their work.”

  Farrell returned to the sofa where he had been seated, sat and lit a cigarette. He was frowning, but didn’t look very upset. Greco slowly walked over to the last vacant chair, sat in it and put his head in his hands.

  CHAPTER XII

  LOUISE APPLE put her finger on a point the others in the group had missed. She said tentatively, “You say all these police are here because of Mrs. Whittier’s death, officer? Is that the only reason they’re here?”

  Wynn looked at her and said stolidly, “Why else, madam?”

  The party guests exchanged glances among each other. Even Joe Greco raised his head long enough to stare at the lieutenant, then dropped it back in his hands. The men of my raiding party gave me inquiring looks. I moved my head in a bare shake.

  A tangible mixture of puzzlement and relief spread among the party guests.

  The M.E. came down the stairs and carried his bag into the front room. He said to Wynn, “You can release her to the coroner’s wagon as soon as it gets here. I’m through.”

  “Anything?” Wynn asked.

  “She’s been dead not more than an hour. As nearly as I can tell by preliminary examination, the blade penetrated clear through the chest and severed the spinal column. The thing’s about nine inches long. It would take a hard thrust to make it penetrate so deep, because there’s all that chest cartilage to go through. Suicides usually don’t jab with a knife. They hold the point against them and push with both hands. I don’t think she could have pushed it that hard.”

  Joe Greco looked up and said in a husky voice, “You mean Isobel was murdered?”

  The M.E. shrugged. “That’s up to the coroner. My opinion is that she was.”

  I flicked my gaze around the room to catch reactions to this announcement. Ross Whittier and Joe Greco were already looking so upset, it was difficult to tell what effect this news had on them. The others, with the exception of Sharon and the other two women who were in even worse shape, registered various expressions of surprise and shock. Nobody at all looked guilty.

  Lieutenant Wynn asked the M.E., “When you say it would take a hard thrust, do you mean the killer must have been unusually strong?”

  “Oh, no. I just meant the implement must have been swung at the victim with force, not merely pushed into her. I think a woman could have managed it, because the point is pretty sharp. I’ll have a written report on your desk in the morning, Lieutenant.”

  “Okay,” Wynn said. “Thanks.”

  As the medical examiner went out, the lab man and t
he photographer came downstairs. Wynn looked at them inquiringly.

  The lab technician handed the lieutenant a chrome-plated letter opener with a blade approximately nine inches long and a narrow, tapering point. Apparently he had washed it clean in the bathroom, because there was no blood on it.

  “No fingerprints on the handle,” the technician said. “That flat metal surface is perfect for prints, so it must have been wiped. I didn’t find anything else interesting.”

  Howard Farrell said, “I know where that letter opener came from.”

  Lieutenant Wynn scowled at him. “We’ll get to you when we get to you, mister. I take things in order.” He looked at the photographer.

  “I got a half-dozen shots,” the man said. “You gonna need me for anything else?”

  “How do I know?” Wynn growled. “Both of you stick around till we see what develops.”

  He turned to me. “All right, Rudd. Suppose you describe where all these people were when the raid—ah—just before you discovered the body.”

  I thought this over. It was going to be a little difficult to describe the situation if we were going to pretend it had been an innocuous social gathering. Presumably I wasn’t supposed to mention that nearly everyone had been naked.

  I said, “We were playing a party game, Lieutenant. A thing called Hide-in-the-dark. There weren’t any lights on in the house, you understand.”

  “Yes, I know,” Wynn said impatiently.

  “The object of the game was for me and my friends to guess what everyone was doing when we turned the lights on. My friends were all outside waiting for me to let them in, you see. It was to be a sort of surprise game.”

  Lieutenant Wynn gave me the jaundiced eye, unsure whether I was going along with his instructions to ignore the real purpose of the party, or was simply trying to make a damn fool of him.

  I said, “On my way to the back door I met Louise Apple in the kitchen.” I pointed out Louise. “We had some conversation and I told her to meet me in a few minutes at the bottom of the stairs. It wasn’t more than a minute and a half later that we turned on the front-room lights and she was standing where I had told her to. So I think you can eliminate her as a possible murderess. She wouldn’t have had time to get upstairs and back down again.”

  Louise Apple looked relieved and Lieutenant Wynn grunted.

  “Three couples were here in the front room,” I went on. “They were all here before Mrs. Whittier went upstairs, because I saw them here while she and Howard Farrell were still smoking a—ah—cigarette in the dining room. They should be able to alibi each other.”

  I pointed out the three couples. “I was introduced to them all earlier, but the only one whose name I remember is George Apple over there. You’ll have to ask them who they are.”

  The young man who had been on the sofa with his partner said he was Allan Reginald. He said his partner—he referred to her as his dancing partner—was Mrs. Eleanor Gains. He said neither had been out of the room since the lights went off. Mrs. Gains was still too high in the clouds to corroborate his story, but since I had seen them in the room every time I passed through, it was likely he was telling the truth.

  The man who had been entangled with his partner in an easy chair said he was Clyde Gains, the husband of the woman who had been on the sofa with young Allan Reginald. His “dancing partner” was Mrs. Georgia Cobb. They were both relatively aware of what was going on, and each insisted neither had left the room.

  George Apple said his youthful partner was Miss Penny Doyle. She was still too out-of-this-world to corroborate anything he said, but the same alibi applied to them as to the first couple: I had seen them in the room every time I passed through.

  That ruled out seven of the fifteen guests aside from myself. I turned to the other young woman and the man she had been with in the study.

  “All I know about this pair is that they were in the dining room after Mrs. Whittier went upstairs, then moved into the center hall. They were in the study when the lights went on.”

  The man identified himself as Eric Franklin, the girl as Nancy Ford. They insisted that they had gone straight to the study from the dining room and hadn’t stirred from it until I opened the door. Which reduced the possible suspects to six invited guests plus one uninvited one, the last being Ross Whittier.

  We were able to eliminate three more of the invited guests. Mrs. Franklin said primly, “Mr. Cobb and Mr. Hart and I can all alibi each other. We walked upstairs together and were conversing in one of the rooms the whole time.”

  Wynn gave her a curious look. “The three of you?”

  Mrs. Franklin put her nose in the air. “The entire house was dark, and we didn’t care to join in the game. So we found a place where we could converse undisturbed.”

  I said, “She’s telling the truth, Lieutenant. They went upstairs together and were still together in the first room on the right when I opened the door.”

  Lieutenant Wynn asked, “Who are these Misters Cobb and Hart you mentioned?”

  The younger man who had been with her said he was Lester Hart. The older one said he was Samuel Cobb.

  That reduced it to four possible suspects: Howard Farrell, Joe Greco, Sharon and Ross Whittier.

  Wynn started on Farrell first.

  Farrell said that he had walked upstairs with Isobel in the dark, had left her in front of her bedroom door and had gone into the room across from hers to wait for her.

  “Wait for her to do what?” the lieutenant asked.

  Farrell looked at him for a minute, then smiled a trifle sardonically. “For some reason I haven’t quite grasped, you’ve all been trying to clean this party up. Don’t think I don’t appreciate it, because I’d hate to have to appear in court on some nasty vice charge. But I can’t explain things very well without undoing some of your clean-up efforts.”

  “You’re among friends,” I put in dryly. “And I doubt that anyone here is easily shocked. I glanced at Nora Franklin, who ignored me.

  Lieutenant Wynn glared at me for daring to insert a comment into his interrogation. I ignored him.

  Farrell said, “Isobel always undressed in her own room, because she liked to hang her clothes up instead of just dropping them on the floor somewhere. But she liked to undress alone. She got some kind of kick out of slipping across the hall bare when she was ready. I’ve waited for her in that same room before.”

  Ross Whittier looked stricken. Joe Greco glared at Farrell. Farrell ignored both of them.

  Wynn said a little uncomfortably, “Then you had an assignation with Mrs. Whittier?”

  “I guess that’s the polite word for it.”

  “And you didn’t leave the room where you were waiting?”

  Farrell shook his head.

  “Didn’t you wonder why she was taking so long?”

  “I was a little high,” Farrell explained, then added quickly, “On liquor. Time seems to move differently for me when I drink. I didn’t realize it had been so long.”

  Wynn knew as well as I did that he really meant he’d been smoking marijuana, which does destroy your sense of time. If Farrell had been sufficiently goofed up, it would be quite possible for him to sit waiting for as long as an hour without realizing how much time had passed. The lieutenant didn’t press the point.

  Turning to the councilman-at-large, he asked politely, “Where were you all this time, Mr. Greco?”

  “Wandering around looking for Isobel. I lost her in the darkness.”

  I risked Wynn’s disapproval again by asking, “Did you find her?”

  Wynn glared at me and Greco asked stiffly, “What do you mean by that, Rudd?”

  “You were coming downstairs just as the fights went on. Did you look into her room?”

  “I don’t know which her room is,” Greco said in the same stiff voice. “I’d never been upstairs before. I opened the first door I came to, but some people were in there—ah—talking. I decided not to risk disturbing anyone else and came downstair
s again.”

  “You’d never been upstairs before?” I said incredulously.

  Wynn said sharply, “If Mr. Greco says he hasn’t, I think we can accept his word for it, Sergeant.”

  Greco said, “No, no, Lieutenant. Let me answer the question. I’ve been taking Isobel out socially for some time, Rudd, but this is the first one of her parties I’ve attended. In the past when I called for her, I was always let in by a maid and waited in the front room until Isobel was ready to leave.”

  Lieutenant Wynn wanted to end the cross examination of the politician. Clearing his throat, he said, “How ‘about you, Miss Manners?”

  Sharon was beginning to shake off her reefer and love-potion jag, but she still wasn’t in thinking shape. She couldn’t remember anything she had done since shortly after the lights went out. She didn’t even know she had been upstairs.

  Young Nancy Ford said, “You took your clothes off in the study, Sharon. We saw you in the moonlight.”

  Lieutenant Wynn underwent a mental struggle. He was beginning to realize he couldn’t conduct a proper investigation if he insisted on suppressing all mention of the party’s unusual activities. He seemed to decide he’d admit as evidence any of the activities which were pertinent to the murder.

  He asked, “Do you recall doing that, Miss Manners?”

  Sharon shook her head.

  Howard Farrell said slowly, “That’s where that letter opener was kept. On the writing desk in the study.”

  Nancy Ford exclaimed, “That’s what she picked up that glittered so, Eric. Remember we wondered what it was?”

  Eric Franklin said, “Yeah. She carried it away with her.”

  Little Ross Whittier said, “That’s right. I was in the center hall when Miss Manners came from the study carrying the letter opener. I followed her upstairs to see what she was up to.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  EVERYBODY IN the room looked at Sharon. The redheaded girl, still leaning her back against the bar and supporting herself on both elbows, didn’t seem to be paying much attention. She had retreated into a semi-coma again.