Death House Doll (17 page)

Corson nodded at his squad. “All right. We still have plenty to do. Let’s gather them up and head back for Chicago.”

Hymie bleated, “I won’t go. I know my legal rights. You got to extradite me.”

Corson used the back of his hand to knock him across the room. “Okay. You’re extradited.” He motioned Gloria to her feet, then pushed his battered straw hat to the back of his head and looked at the girl on the sofa with a puzzled expression in his eyes. “And who is this?” he asked me.

I said, “Suppose you ask her?”

“Who are you?” Corson asked her.

The girl on the sofa stood up. Her mouth opened as she started to tell him.

“Why, I —” she began. Her mouth continued to work but no words came out. The full realization that she was talking to an honest cop, that she was safe, really safe for the first time in six months, swept over her like a wave.

“Why, I —” she repeated, then fainted.

I
T HAD
been a long day. A lot of things had happened. I’d talked to a lot of people. Night was a long time in coming. But it was worth it when it came. If the brass in the big office had been generals, instead of attorneys general and big-shot police and high state officials, there would have been almost as many stars in the room as there were in the sky.

Captain Corson hadn’t been kidding. He’d been right behind me all the time. He’d even picked up the suit case containing my uniform that I’d left in my room in the North Clark Street flea bag. It felt good to be back in uniform. I sat with one hip on a desk looking around the room. Everyone concerned with the case was there, except Johnny’s boy and the little doll I had seen in the death house.

Corson read my mind. “Keep your pants on, Sergeant,” he said. “You know how it is. There is almost as much red tape in our business as there is in yours.”

“Yeah. Sure,” I said, “I know how it is.”

We hadn’t let First Assistant State’s Attorney Olson in on all the details. He tried to butter up to me. “You seem to have made quite a forty-eight hours of it, Duval.”

I brushed him off. “I’ve had better times doing other things.”

Warden Kane came in a few minutes later. The little doll still looked good to me. She was still wearing the old-fashioned gold loop earrings and Kane had allowed her to change into the dress she had been wearing when she’d been committed to Joliet. It wasn’t much of a dress but she had what it takes to fill it out and make it look like a Paris creation. She’d braided her hair and wound braids around her head. Her big eyes were bright and shining. She walked with her head held high. She looked around the room, then came directly to me and touched my cheek with the finger tips of one hand. She breathed the two words. “Funny face.”

I put my hand on her fingers. “You told me to think of you.

She said, “And you did.”

Then she and the girl I’d rescued from LaFanti’s place in the Dunes were kissing each other and hugging and crying in each other’s arms.

Seen together, there was a strong resemblance. You could tell they were sisters. Both were five feet tall. Both of them had black hair. Both had blue eyes and fair skins. Both had beautiful bodies. But the resemblance stopped there. The eyes of the girl that my brother had married looked tired and too old for her body.

Olson’s lips looked dry. He tried to wet them with his tongue. “I — I don’t get this,” he said.

Captain Corson rubbed the knuckles of his left hand with the fingers of his right. The tail of the canary was still sticking out of his smile. “You will,” he said, genially, “you will.”

It was all very informal. A dignified, white-haired man, the state’s attorney general looked at Olson thoughtfully, then across the room at me. “Suppose, Sergeant Duval,” he suggested, “inasmuch as you have been the chief instrument in preventing a flagrant miscarriage of justice, you explain the situation to Mr. Olson.” He leaned on the word mister.

I said, “You convicted the wrong girl, Olson. It seems there are two Jones girls, just as there were two Duval boys.”

He repeated, “I still don’t get it.”

I looked over to where LaFanti was sitting in a straight-backed chair handcuffed to a detective. “Maybe you’d like to tell him, Joe.”

“Go to hell,” LaFanti said. His broken nose made him sound as if he had adenoids.

The two girls stopped hugging and kissing each other and watched me. I singled out the one I’d picked out of the bedroom in LaFanti’s lodge. “What’s your name, honey?”

She said, “I’m known in Chicago as Mona Ambler.”

“Is that your right name?”

“No. My right name is Mary Jones.”

“And you?” I asked the other girl.

She said, “I’m Clara, Mary’s sister.”

“And where have you been the last six months?”

“In prison.”

“Why? I mean what was the charge against you?”

“I was accused and convicted of murdering a man named Stein.”

I looked back at Mary. “Did Clara kill Stein?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Did you?”

She shook her head even harder. “No, but I can’t prove it. That’s why all this happened.” She made a hopeless little gesture. “Oh, I’m no angel. I don’t claim to be one. If I’d had any strength of character I wouldn’t have let Joe LaFanti force me back into the rackets. I’d have done what I wanted to do, stay true to Johnny. I’d have made a good home for my baby even if I had to work as a salesgirl days and wait table nights.”

“Instead, you allowed LaFanti to force you back into working at The Furnace?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do there?”

She began to cry again. “Why shame me by making me say it? You know what I did.”

I said, “All right. Let’s put it this way. Six months ago, while you were working at The Furnace, you made the acquaintance of a wholesale jewelry salesman by the name of Stein?”

“I did.”

“And took him to your hotel room?”

“Yes.”

“Were you intimate with him?”

“Yes.”

“What happened then?”

She made the hopeless gesture again. “Both of us were drunk. I was so drunk I passed out. When I came to Joe and Norm were in the room arguing with Stein. Somehow they’d learned he was carrying a fortune in diamonds. They wanted them. Stein put up a drunken argument and Joe lost his temper and shot him with the gun he’d given me.”

“What happened then?”

“Joe and Norm searched the room for the diamonds.”

“Did they find them?”

“No.”

“But you did?”

“Yes, after they’d gone. Mr. Stein had taken off the belt the diamonds were in when he’d undressed and thrown it under the bed. It was away back against the wall.”

“Why didn’t you phone the police immediately and tell them what had happened?”

“I was afraid to. It was my word against Joe’s. I didn’t have any political drag. He did. Besides, being what I was, I knew no one would believe my story.”

“So what did you do?”

“I phoned my sister Clara. She’d just gotten into town a few months before all this happened, just in time to meet my husband, Johnny.”

“She approved of the way you were living?”

“No. Clara raised hell about it every time we got together.”

“But she did come when you phoned her?”

“She was at the hotel within twenty minutes.”

A moment of silence followed. Corson broke it by patting Corson on the back, “I knew right from the start there was something wrong. The kid in the room gave her name as Mona Ambler. She admitted she’d stayed with Stein. But it didn’t stack up somehow. That’s why I’ve been working on the case ever since.”

The attorney general reproved him. “If you please, Captain Corson. You have performed an excellent piece of police work. The state appreciates it very much. But for the moment, allow Sergeant Duval to continue.”

I looked at the girl who’d sweated out six months in the death house. “What happened when you got to the room?”

She said, “Naturally, Mary and I were frantic. We were afraid, that under the circumstances, the police would laugh at Mary if she told the truth. Then there was the baby to consider.”

“What about him?”

“We both wanted to get him in some safe place before we phoned the police. So Mary called a nursing home she’d heard of and they agreed to take him in.”

“But why did Mary take him to the home instead of you? Why did you stay in the room and take the rap?”

A wisp of hair fell into her eyes. She brushed at it with the back of one hand. “It all seemed so simple and logical at the time. Mary, or Mona, as she was known in Chicago, knew the ropes. She had the diamonds to trade for the truth. We figured that if I took her place for a few hours she could put the baby in the home and then make a deal with LaFanti.”

“You knew if she didn’t return you’d be in a bad spot?”

“I suppose I did.”

“Still you stuck your neck out for your sister.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“She was my sister.”

It was as good an answer as any. I’d have done the same for Johnny.

Mona sobbed, “I meant to come back in an hour. I promised Clara I would. But both of us were hysterical with fear and what we forgot at the time was that murder was one rap that not even LaFanti’s political connection could quash. It was either his neck or mine.”

“You took Johnny to the home, posing as a friend of yourself?”

“I did.”

“Why? I mean why did you take the baby to a home in the first place?”

She told us. “Because my baby was one of the levers LaFanti used to force me back into the rackets. He said if I refused to go back to work at The Furnace that some night my baby would disappear.”

Corson looked at LaFanti. “I don’t think I hit you hard enough. You’re going to be surprised how many times you’re going to fall up and down the jail stairs before you come to trial.”

The attorney general didn’t reprove him. No one said anything about unnecessary police brutality.

Mona’s mouth worked. “Like I said, I meant to be back in the hotel room in an hour. But Joe was waiting for me when I came down the stairs of the nursing home and he’s kept me a prisoner in his apartment ever since.”

“Leaving Clara holding the bag?”

“Leaving Clara holding the bag.”

One of the big-shot officials asked Clara, “Why didn’t you admit your right identity when your sister didn’t return?”

She said, “Because I didn’t know what had happened to her. I waited and I waited. And she didn’t come back.” She wiped tears off her cheeks. “Then after I did phone the police, everything was confused. Everyone was asking me questions at the same time and taking pictures of me and I didn’t know what to do.”

The attorney general asked, “But why in the name of God did you sign a confession, my dear?”

She met his eyes. “Because a certain man told me that if I didn’t, both my sister and her baby would be killed.”

“Is that man in this room?”

“He is.”

LaFanti got to his feet. “This is all a lot of crap,” he shouted. “The girl is lying. Both of them are lying. I never killed anyone. And no one warned her to keep her mouth shut.”

The detective to whom he was handcuffed jerked him back onto his chair.

I looked at First Assistant State’s Attorney Olson. He didn’t look well.

“A nice try, Joe,” Corson said. “But I’m afraid your political drag isn’t going to be able to get you out of this one. In fact, he has more trouble of his own than he can handle.” Captain Corson transferred his attention. “All right, Olson,” he said, quietly. “Why don’t you let your hair down and admit you’re not only LaFanti’s political drag but also his silent partner?’

It grew so still in the big room that I could hear the pound of my heart.

Olson tried to wet his dry lips. It was difficult for him to breathe. “You must be another mental case, Captain.”

Corson shook his head. “No.” The back of his neck got red. “Just what the hell made you think you could pull the wool over a cop’s eyes who was investigating homicides when you were learning how much are two and two? Like that business in LaFanti’s apartment. You had to have a warrant for this. You had to have a warrant for that. Everything had to be legal. And meanwhile, you knew that LaFanti and his boys were cleaning up the apartment like mad.”

Corson fished in his vest pocket and came up with the small white object I’d seen him pick off the floor in LaFanti’s rooms. He laid it on the attorney general’s desk. “But they overlooked this tooth Duval said he blew out of Tommy’s mouth. And it wasn’t smart to give a punk elevator boy five grand, although it turned out pretty good for our side. Manny has been singing so loud we’ve had to keep cotton in our ears. And so has Hymie, for that matter. He admits you and he killed Emerson, Joe. You did it to keep his mouth shut after Emerson went down to Joliet at Sergeant Duval’s suggestion and verified the sergeant’s suspicion that the client Emerson had known as Mona Ambler wasn’t Mona.” Corson continued to pour it on. “We’ve also found Tommy’s body. Then there is the cab driver who brought Gloria to the apartment. And Gloria’s statement that she lied on both occasions, both about being in the apartment and about being raped by Duval.” The tail of the canary showed again. “Do you want to hear any more or will that hold you for a while?”

LaFanti stared at the floor.

Captain Corson nodded to the detective who was handcuffed to LaFanti. “Put that thing on Mr. Olson’s wrist, Bill,” he said. “Then take them both downstairs. I’ll be along in a few minutes to sign the sheet.”

The detective handcuffed Olson to LaFanti. “All right. You heard the captain. Let’s go, boys.”

Neither of them spoke as they shuffled out of the office.

The attorney general got up from behind his desk and crossed the office to sit down beside the real “Mona.” “I’m sorry, my dear,” he said. “Your sister’s release papers have already been signed but we’re going to have to hold you for a little while as a material witness.”

Mona’s lips quivered. “Yes, sir.”

He continued, “But it won’t be very long. Meanwhile you’ll know that your baby is in good hands and safe. And when we are able to release you, perhaps you can start life all over again.”