Chapter 11 #2
“Yeah, he just graduated Harvard and they got him starting at the bottom as a messenger, fifteen bucks a week. He wants to spread his wings a little, only nacheral. I got a bit of property he’s interested in,” said Bender importantly.
“Waal, we’ll check it out, but I guess if you was with him, you didn’t shoot Carmody.”
“I’d have told you if he was the man I saw,” said Daisy indignantly.
Gilligan ignored her. “Still, if you’re swimming with the big fish, you don’t want nuttin to spoil the deal, like maybe stories in the papers, like Carmody was writing. I figure you musta hired it done.”
“You’re nuts!”
“Oh I am, am I?” Gilligan said nastily. Standing up, he loomed threateningly over Bender.
“Well, lemme tell you, Mister Bender, we know you got toughs on your payroll and we know who they are. I’m gonna pull ‘em in and grill ’em and sooner or later one of ’em’s gonna crack and spill the works to save himself some grief.
And meantime, Mister Bender, I’m gonna take you downtown and try if we can improve your memory down at headquarters.
” He signaled to Larssen, who lumbered over.
“But …,” bleated Bender.
“You gonna come quietly? Don’t wanna scare the ladies, do you?”
“I want to call my lawyer!”
“Now, now,” Gilligan reproved him, “ain’t no need for that. You ain’t under arrest … not yet. I just wanna ask you a few questions where it’s peaceful and quiet, that’s all.”
“Elva!”
“I’ll call him, Bart. What’s his name?”
“Macpherson, James P. Macpherson.”
“See, your memory’s improving already.” Gilligan put a heavy hand on Bender’s shoulder.
“O.K., I’m coming, I’m coming!”
“I’ll telephone Mr. Macpherson, Bart. Right away.” As the sergeant and his minion bore off the hapless man, Mrs. Carmody jumped up, agitated. “I never knew he did it, I swear.”
“I’m sure you didn’t, ma’am,” Rosenblatt soothed her, adding with some asperity, “that is, I dare say he didn’t. Our good sergeant is inclined to jump the gun.”
But, Daisy noticed, he made no move to stop Gilligan.
“I must call his lawyer. Poor Bart—will they use the ‘third degree’?”
“Of course not, Mrs. Carmody. Not on a prominent citizen with a good lawyer. So there’s no hurry for you to telephone. Just sit down, and maybe we can clear this all up here and now.”
Once more dabbing her eyes, Mrs. Carmody sat. “If he did it, I didn’t know nothing about it,” she declared again.
“Did Mr. Bender ever make threats against your husband?”
“Oh no, not seriously. Of course he’s real sweet on me, so he was madder’n a hornets’ nest when Otis wouldn’t do the right thing by me. But he was talking mostly ’bout what his lawyer’d do to Otis, not his boys.”
“Mostly?” insinuated Rosenblatt.
“Well, he did say Otis’d change his mind in a hurry if he was to set the boys on him, but I said he mustn’t and he promised he wouldn’t.
I still loved Otis, see.” Mrs. Carmody sniffed delicately and dabbed again.
“I wouldn’t’ve wanted anything bad to happen to him, however mean he was.
I just didn’t wanna fritter away my life playing second fiddle to his work.
You unnerstand, don’t you?” she asked Rosenblatt meltingly.
“Sure. You’re only young once, right? A beautiful lady shouldn’t waste her youth on …”
“Uh …” Gilligan reappeared, rather pink in the face. “Hey, you, Lambert!”
“Who, me?”
“Aw, geez, let’s not get into this cross-talk deal again! You finished with that mug book?”
“Er … I have, but I don’t think Mrs. Fletcher’s gotten quite all the way through. I didn’t recognize anyone.”
“I guess Mrs. Fletcher better finish up. If you was to reckernize wunna Bender’s toughs, ma’am, we’d have him cold.”
Daisy didn’t want to return to those beastly faces when she could be listening to Rosenblatt and Mrs. Carmody. “I don’t want to delay you,” she said. “Suppose I give the book to Detective O’Rourke when he comes back, or is he going with you?”
Gilligan looked taken aback, as if he had forgotten O’Rourke’s existence. Perhaps he had. “That’ll be fine, ma’am,” he said. “O’Rourke can bring it back to Centre Street.”
“Shall I tell him that’s where you’ve gone?”
The sergeant’s face turned purple, but he reined himself in and merely snapped, “You can leave that to me, ma’am.”
“Right-oh,” said Daisy, and Gilligan stalked out. Daisy stayed put.
“Who are these people?” Mrs. Carmody asked plaintively. Daisy wondered whether she could possibly be so self-centred she actually had not noticed the other inhabitants of the room.
“The residents of this suite,” Rosenblatt explained, “and
a couple of witnesses. If they make you uncomfortable, we can go downtown to talk.”
“Oh no!”
“Not to police headquarters. The District Attorney’s of fices are in the Criminal Courts Building.”
“Criminal Courts! Oh no! No, let’s stay here, but I don’t think I got anything else to tell you.”
“Do you know if your husband had any enemies?”
“Enemies,” sneered Mrs. Carmody. “Better ask if he had any friends. That’s what he did for a living, make enemies. I can’t begin to list them.”
“Who were his friends?” Rosenblatt asked patiently.
“He didn’t have any in New York, not that I knew anyway. If I hadn‘t’ve gone out and made friends for myself, I’d’ve never seen anyone.”
“In Washington?”
“There were a coupla guys, couples that we visited with, but I don’t think he kept in touch. We’d’ve maybe exchanged Christmas greetings, you know, like we did with the folks in Chicago. That’s where we met, Chicago.”
“Carmody wasn’t from Chicago, though.”
“No, he worked there a few years, on the Herald-American . He came from some hick town out west, like I come from a hick town back in Iowa.” Mrs. Carmody coyly smoothed the fur cuff at her wrist. “You wouldn’t guess it to look at me now, would you?”
“Not in a million years,” said Rosenblatt. “The Herald-American , that’s a Hearst paper, isn’t it?”
“Huh? Oh, you mean Mr. Randolph Hearst owns it? Yeah, could be. Now you come to mention it, Otis mighta mentioned that once. I don’t remember for sure, though. Don’t quote me!” she giggled.
“Did Carmody keep in touch with his family out west?”
“Just at Christmas. He may’ve wrote his mother sometimes, I dunno, or his sisters.
His dad was a banker, a big man in town.
He went to college, you know, Otis. Not just a farm college, either.
They got a real university out there, would you believe?
I mean, it isn’t no Yale or Harvard, but he was real educated, my Otis. ”
Mrs. Carmody began to cry in earnest, the first real tears Daisy had seen.
Her tiny hankie proved inadequate. With aplomb Rosenblatt handed over his own sizable square, reminding Daisy of Alec’s injunction always to pack spare handkerchiefs when he travelled on a case.
She repressed an urge to go over and comfort the woman, without great difficulty as she simply couldn’t care much about her.
“He’s really gone, isn’t he?” Mrs. Carmody sniffed.
“I didn’t really realize before, not for real.
We had good times, him and me, back in Chicago.
Only then he changed, and he didn’t seem to want to give me a good time anymore.
” She sounded bewildered. “I thought it might be better in New York, more like Chicago, but he was just like in Washington. It wasn’t me that changed. ”
Daisy felt her sympathies rising, for both of the ill-matched couple. Rosenblatt obviously did not. He went on with his questioning.
“Did Carmody keep in touch with his cousins or other relatives?”
“Nix! On his mother’s side, they’re just farmers and mill hands and like that.”
“You didn’t know one of his relatives is in New York?”
“Gosh darn, you don’t say! No, he never told me. If you want the truth, we didn’t talk much the last few weeks.”
“A Mr. Wilbur Pitt.”
“Never heard of him. Why would I? Otis didn’t talk about his family. What’s he doing in New York, this guy?”
“We haven’t spoken to him yet,” Rosenblatt said guardedly. He glanced at his wrist-watch. “If he contacts you, will you let me know? Here’s my card. I have to go now, I’m due in court. Don’t leave town, will you? Either I or Sergeant Gilligan will probably need to ask you a few more questions.”
“Gee, not that sergeant. He gave me the willies. You’re a gentleman, anyone can see.”
Flattery left the Deputy D.A. as unmoved as had tears. “In any case we’ll be in touch with you about your husband’s possessions. If you’re not using your hotel room, you better give me the address of your apartment.”
“Aw, gee, I dunno. Bart wouldn’t like me giving out that address. It’s kinda private, see.”
“I can take you down to police headquarters to ask Mr. Bender’s permission.”
“No, thanks! I guess they’re gonna sweat it out of poor Bart anyhow, so I might as well tell.” She gave the address. “I gotta powder my nose. Can I use Otis’s room?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I’m sure Miss Cabot will oblige.”
“Oh dear! Oh yes, of course, do come this way, Mrs. Carmody.”
As Miss Cabot ushered Mrs. Carmody out, Rosenblatt came over to Daisy and Miss Genevieve.
“Satisfied, ladies?” he enquired sarcastically.
“Why did you stay here,” said Daisy, “if you didn’t want us to listen?”
“Strike while the iron’s hot. Give ’em time to think and they realize they’d do better to clam up. I’m sure Sergeant Gilligan will be most grateful, Mrs. Fletcher, if you can
find a moment to look through the rest of his precious mug book.”
“I expect I might find a moment.”
“And you will let us know if you plan to leave town, won’t you?
You’re the only witness who actually saw the guy’s face.
” He cast a reproachful glance at Lambert, who reddened.
“Sigurd Thorwald swears he was looking at the elevator and then at Mr. Lambert, not the guy you were chasing. Not that I’d give much for his evidence, the state he was in.
Thank you for the use of your place, Miss Genevieve. I guess.”
“You’re more than welcome,” said Miss Genevieve cordially. “Any time.”
Rosenblatt departed.
“Sarky beast,” said Daisy. “What do you make of all that?”
“You’d better finish up with the mug book first,” said Miss Genevieve.
“O’Rourke will be in for it any minute and we don’t want him hanging around.
Anyway, we can’t talk freely till Elva Carmody’s gone.
Are you planning on staying the rest of the day?
” she demanded of Lambert, still seated at her desk.
“Let him stay,” Daisy suggested, “while I’m here, that is. Otherwise he’ll just hang about in the passage outside your door, waiting to see where I go next. I hope you noted where I got to in that book, Mr. Lambert. I don’t want to have to go through all those beastly faces again.”
“Yes, I marked the place,” he said eagerly, pleased to have done something right for once.
Daisy returned to the desk and flipped through the last few photographs, without result. None of the beastly faces reminded her in the least of the man on the stairs.