Homicide at Yuletide Read online

“Gag?”

  “If all the paper stuff was burned,” I said, “what am I supposed to be looking at?”

  Parker said, “These are old photos, all more than a year old. She kept them in a warehouse. We dug them out. Why don’t you do what the Captain says, without palaver?”

  I went over them like a bookkeeper goes over ledger sheets. It took a long time. There was a picture of Gay Cochrane, alone and smiling, dated about two years back, and then there was one of Gay and Noah, neither smiling, dated a year back.

  When I was finished, the Captain said, “Know anybody?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Where were you most of this day?”

  I told him, exactly.

  “All right, Mr. Chambers. We’ll call you if we need you.”

  We were both brushed off, Alger and myself. We walked through some of the narrow Village streets in silence. On a wider street, I said, “I’m going to grab a cab. You coming uptown?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve got a date in Brooklyn.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re not sore?”

  “Me?”

  “I mean you can’t keep secrets when somebody’s been shot. Can you?”

  “No, Alger.”

  He waved at a cruising cab. “You take it. I’ve got a lot of time.”

  “So long.”

  “ ‘By.”

  The cab driver wanted conversation, but I wasn’t having any. I rolled my window down, let the air in, and slumped. Presently we were uptown, and when we made the turn, I saw a vintage rattletrap parked in front of my apartment house. I asked the cabbie to draw up alongside of it. I stuck my head out and said, “Boo.”

  Gene Tiny said, “Where’ve you been for heaven’s sake?”

  “Let me pay the guy first.”

  I paid, got out, and got in beside her. She stepped on the starter and shifted a gear and the thing lurched from the sidewalk like a drunk from an irate wife. We bounced along Fifty-Ninth Street to the Queensborough Bridge.

  “Mad?” I inquired.

  “Not really, but where the heck were you? It’s ten to four.”

  “Down by Grace White.”

  “Heck of a fire, wasn’t it? You have any better luck than I did? Policemen all around the place. Nobody could get past those ropes.”

  “I was invited down.”

  “Oh. You know Grace White?”

  “No. I know Lieutenant Parker.”

  “Very repartee. But very. I happen to know Lieutenant Parker too. What’s he got to do with a fire down at Grace White’s studio?”

  “They found her inside. With a bullet in her.”

  She swerved, and we skidded all the way to the embankment before we straightened away. Curses were crisp in the clear wintry air. Drivers glared.

  “Don’t do that,” I said. “Please.”

  “Grace White—dead?”

  “We don’t talk any more till we get off this bridge.” And we didn’t, until we got off.

  Then she said, “What’s it all about?”

  “I don’t know. According to the police, she was shot. Did you reach Barney?”

  “He wasn’t in. I left messages, but he didn’t call back.”

  “This must be his courtin’ day. I met him coming out of Evelyn Dru’s, early.”

  “I didn’t know they knew each other.”

  “That Barney gets around. You’re business, baby. She’s social. Barney doesn’t mix those two. He says.”

  “It’s terrible, really terrible.”

  “What?”

  “Grace White.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “No. But all this murder business. I’m a private detective, but, honestly, this is the first time I’ve ever been mixed up in a murder case, and now it’s two of them. My business has been skip tracing, finding assets, finding people, divorce stuff, and all the miserable filthy nonsense that’s thrown to people like us, and, honestly, I’ve grown to hate it—but this sort of thing—”

  I sneaked a look at her. She was pale, and her mouth sagged a little, and she was looking straight ahead of her, holding on to the wheel like it was a crutch that she needed.

  “Ease off,” I said. “In this business, you’ve got to learn to pull the shade on things. It’s like all the stuff that shows up in the newspapers. You just can’t stay with it, or you go nuts. You let it ride, or it rides you.”

  She made a turn and sideswiped a taxi. Going away from that, she almost ran up on the sidewalk. We were getting to outlying territory where the wind blustered and the snow held and there were patches of ice.

  “Would you like me to drive?” I said.

  “Don’t you like the way I drive?”

  “Frankly, no.”

  “Frankly, that’s just too damn bad. I’ve been driving since I’m a kid.”

  “Well, let’s not talk, huh? Just drive.”

  I sat tight in my corner watching the road and watching her knees and bending with body English every time she passed a car. We got onto a lonely road, gaunt trees flanking us, snow stiff white, and then onto another broad highway, and then we turned into a long private road and drove through a high iron gateway. We stopped in front of a low domed building with a stone porch and marble pillars.

  “Want to go in with me?” I said.

  “Is it necessary?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’d rather wait out here.”

  I kissed her on the temple. She smiled, and shuddered.

  Have you ever been in a crematorium?

  It’s a place that sort of sifts for itself.

  Or didn’t you ash?

  Puns from the private eye, ear, nose, and throat.

  That’s what happens when you’re scared.

  It was hot inside with the constant sound of hissing steam. It was all clear gray stone, and your footsteps reverberated. It was a long empty unadorned hall, a big hollow rectangle. There was no sound except the hiss of the steam and the plop of my footsteps coming back at me from off the walls.

  I found a door and opened it. A small plaque said Community Room. The walls from floor to ceiling were indented with small square compartments, at a quick glance, like the walls of a shoe store, with the outside ends of the shoe-boxes clean and shiny. Another door was a chapel, and another was a lavish bronze room with a grill gate at the far end.

  Somebody got out of a chair.

  “Sir?” he said.

  It was an attendant, frost-haired, smiling, stooped.

  “May I help you?” he said.

  Help, here, I did not want.

  “Mr. Cochrane,” I said. “I’m looking for Mr. Cochrane.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No.”

  “Is it a matter having to do with a bereavement?”

  “No, It’s just I’d like to talk with him.”

  “Would you like to wait in the office?”

  “I’d much rather.”

  “Mr. Cochrane is busy at the moment. Please follow me.”

  The office was bright and spacious, with French windows and sober furniture. The smiling man bowed and went out on noiseless rubber heels. I sat down in a posture-chair with a divided bottom on the customer’s side of a huge desk. I was restless in the posture chair, studying the ceiling, the walls, the French windows, and then my eyes wandered down, and there, flat beneath the glass of the desk, was a price list, so help me. If you’re an adult, it costs you fifty-five dollars, that is, without any fixings. If you’re between five and ten, it costs you forty dollars. If you’re between one and five, it costs you thirty dollars. If you’re below one, it costs you fifteen dollars, including if you’re stillborn. That’s exactly what it says on the price list, and you can check me on that. Metal caskets, ten dollars extra.

  Noah Cochrane said, “You interested in being cremated?”

  I jumped. Maybe rubber heels were part of the equipment, like cleats for ball players. He was sober and affable in a cutaway coat, striped pan
ts, and a black tie. He went behind the desk, belched, hitched carefully at his trousers, and sat down facing me.

  “No,” I said. “Just a visit.”

  “Visit? I seem to recollect that it was I who was to visit you.”

  “That’s this evening. You coming?”

  “You invited me, didn’t you?”

  “Sure pop, but I heard you walked out of my place last night in a huff.”

  “Huff. Huff.” He reached over and took the lid off a cigarette box, offered one to me and took one for himself. He lit mine with a silver desk lighter and lit his own. “First,” he said, “I was plastered. Second, I’m a beseeching husband sucking around for a reconciliation with a wife who has already instituted divorce proceedings. Have you ever been a beseeching husband, sucking around?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a lousy spot, young fella, believe me.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You get oversensitive. You get huffy. You married?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry for you.”

  “All the married men say that. Even the ones who are getting divorced.”

  “Sorry, but a chap that’s a bachelor, there’s something wrong with him. There’s something wrong with anybody who tries to cut against the grain.” He blew cigarette smoke emphatically. “Every man should be married.”

  “Yeah, but three times?”

  “Me?”

  “Sheldon Talbot.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Sheldon Talbot.”

  “I am.”

  “Now, what the—”

  “Did you see him yesterday morning?”

  He stood up out of the chair. “You’re insufferable, you—”

  “Why?”

  “You’re a nervy, nosy, tactless—”

  “Sheldon Talbot is dead, Mr. Cochrane.”

  “An inquisitive, ineffable, utterly—what’s that?”

  “He was murdered. Not too long after you’re supposed to have seen him.”

  “Sheldon? Murdered?”

  “Correct. Sheldon, murdered.”

  “I read the papers carefully. There’s been nothing.”

  “Maybe the papers don’t know about it. Yet.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  “That’s none of your business, Mr. Cochrane. I am not inquisitive, or ineffable, or utterly. I’m a guy working at his trade, just as you are. I have been retained by the estate to investigate it, plus an additional matter involving a bunch of vanished jewelry. I’m probably here a jump ahead of the riot squad.”

  His mouth opened and stayed like that, his tongue quivering like a freshly beached sardine. Then he snapped his mouth shut, sat down, and used the phone.

  “Hello,” he said. “Terry? Noah. Noah Cochrane. That man’s here, that Peter Chambers. He says something happened to Sheldon, he says— What?” He listened, color leaving his face like it was running out of a hole in his leg. “Yes, yes, I’m very sorry … yes … very sorry.” He hung up.

  He pulled open a deep side drawer and set a bottle on the desk. He brought out two glasses. He said, “Have a drink.”

  I had one. He had two.

  “What is it you want to know, Mr. Chambers?”

  “Were you there yesterday morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time?”

  “About nine-thirty.”

  “How long you stay?”

  “A half hour or so.”

  “Would you tell me what it was about?”

  “Yes.” He had another drink. “He had seen Gay earlier in the week. About that revocation business. You know about that?”

  “Yes.”

  “She told him she was breaking up with me. He wanted to talk with me about that.”

  “Yes?”

  “He wanted my advice on it.”

  “On what?”

  “The revocation. ‘Revoke and be damned,’ I told him.”

  “You sound like Stephan Decatur, or somebody.”

  “Never mind whom I sound like. I told him to go ahead and revoke. That if she didn’t have that independent income, perhaps our marriage wouldn’t be on the rocks. He said that she’d said that I was broke, that I had lost my money. I told him that I had had some market reverses, but that I still had a sufficient income to maintain her properly. I told him that I had no objection to the revocation, that she would never be in want, that it would probably be good for her. There are some women who just aren’t geared for financial independence. Especially somebody like Gay. Basically, she’s a bum.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said that I was too.”

  “What?”

  “A bum.”

  “Are you?”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “Then what happened.”

  “Where?”

  “At Sheldon’s, for God’s sake.”

  “Nothing. He smiled, and listened, and pulled at that damned beard.”

  “Then?”

  “That’s all. I got out of there.”

  I pushed the posture chair back on its hind legs and I teetered like a senator straddling an issue. “Thanks on the Sheldon Talbot. Now what about Grace White?”

  “Grace White? Grace White?” The color that had come back to meet the drinks ran out of the hole again. His face looked like the top of lemon meringue flavored with jaundice. “Mr. Chambers—I—”

  “Grace White. She’s dead. Too.”

  “Mr. Chambers, you’re a goddam dirty liar.” He slammed his hand down on the desk, the little glasses bouncing.

  “Have I been, up to now?”

  “What?”

  “A liar?”

  “Chambers—”

  “At two o’clock this afternoon I was awakened from a siesta.”

  “Siesta? Siesta?”

  “Siesta. What they do in Mexico. I do it in New York. Though there seems to be a conspiracy against it.”

  “Yes, Mr. Chambers.”

  “I was asked by the police to come down to the Grace White Enterprises on Jane Street. I was asked because they’d been informed that she was involved in an investigation of mine. I went. The studio had had a fire. Grace White was found there, dead, but it wasn’t the fire. She had been shot first. I was asked a lot of questions. Now I’m asking you.”

  “But why me?”

  “Because I have reason to believe you know her. Either you, or your wife.”

  “Why?”

  “They had me look over a stack of old photographs. There was one of Gay, dated about two years ago. And there was a picture of you and Gay, dated last year. These were not night club photos. These were regular photos that had been sat for. That is why, Noah.”

  “I see. The police have any comment?”

  “The police had nothing to comment upon.”

  “But you—”

  “I was asked if I recognized any of the photographs. Seems I didn’t.”

  I put the posture-chair back on all of its feet and dinched the cigarette in an ash tray shaped like a spade and waited. Noah Cochrane folded his hands, then unfolded them. He pulled open the flat middle drawer of the desk. He came up with a blue, legal-backed, stapled set of papers. He put that to his left, tapping it. Then he dug in again, and came up with another color. Green. Familiar green. He separated a portion from the bulk and put the bulk back.

  “Five thousand dollars,” he said.

  I took it. “For what?”

  “I want you to represent me.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll tell you.”

  “Okay. I accept. I represent you, but I want to make this clear to both of us. It’s not a bribe. I’m against bribes. Clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “So now I represent you. So what do I represent you about?”

  “I want you to handle this for me. I want you on my side.”

  “I’m listening.”

  He put a finger against the blue-backed legal papers. “Summons
and complaint for absolute divorce. Gay hasn’t been living home. The corespondent is named in the papers.”

  I reached. “May I look?”

  “You don’t have to look. Grace White.”

  “What?”

  “The corespondent named in the papers. Grace White.”

  “Wow,” I said. “You’re going to have so many cops around here, more than you’ve got stiffs. All right. Give out for your representative.” I put his money into my pocket.

  “I met her through Gay.”

  “When?”

  “A couple of years ago, give and take a few months either way.” He lit a new cigarette off the old one. “A wonderful, exciting little girl. She had her own place then, on Fifth Avenue, before the night club work. She didn’t make much money, but she was an awfully good photographer. Gay used her often, and recommended her to friends. After I met her, she did work for both of us. That’s the pictures you saw.”

  “When did she begin to do your work, exclusively?”

  “She was a live, exciting girl. She went to work in the night clubs, oh, only about a year ago. More money in it.”

  “That’s not what I asked you.”

  “She was a fine person, alive, exciting—”

  “Okay. Let’s skip the live, exciting details. When’d you see her last?”

  “Yesterday. When I left your place. In the huff.”

  “Huff, muff, let’s get down to essentials. You didn’t kill her, did you, Noah?”

  “No. At your place, I pleaded with Gay to come home. She wouldn’t. I left. I had my chauffeur drive me down to Eddie Nuki’s. Then I sent him home. I picked up Grace, and we did a couple of the after-hours joints.”

  “Then?”

  “I slept there.”

  “Then?”

  “I left about eleven o’clock in the morning.”

  “Then?”.

  “I was very tired. I had breakfast in a cafeteria. I walked. I sat on a bench in Central Park. I went to a newsreel, where I fell asleep. Then I came out here. I had this special ceremony for four o’clock. Generally we’re closed on Christmas. I came here, showered, shaved, and dressed in these clothes. There you have it.”

  “You’re talking about alibi time, Noah, my lad. Most of it is not provable.”

  “But it’s true.”

  “Walked, sat on a park bench, went to a newsreel, fell asleep. I’ll accept it for now.”

  “Want to advise on it?”

  “It stinks. For policemen, that is. So you had better skip all of that, if they ask. Tell them you slept here. Here. After you sent your chauffeur home, you had a couple of drinks with Grace White, you saw her home, and then you took a taxi to here. You slept here, right here at your place of business.”